Daily Republic: Monday, July 17, 2023

Will the lull last?

State’s Covid-19 hospitalizations are near historic lows

Tribune ConTenT AgenCy

SAN FRANCISCO — Covid-19 hospitalizations are close to record lows in California, an optimistic sign as the state attempts to navigate its first surge-free summer of the coronavirus era.

It’s difficult to say what the rest of the season will bring, however. The coming weeks will help determine whether some kind of uptick in coronavirus transmission is on tap, or if conditions will remain relatively calm until the autumn and winter.

The rate of new weekly Covid-19 hospitalizations in California – though near an all-time low – has been flat over the most recent two weeks for which data are available.

Nationally, weekly declines are starting to level off, too, with hospitalizations on the rise in some parts of the country.

Throughout the pandemic, hospitalization numbers have proved a useful, if lagging, indicator of coronavirus spread. A significant or sustained jump in patient counts would probably mean the coronavirus is circulating more widely in a community.

Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, a UC San Francisco infectious-diseases expert, said he suspects that signs of an increase in coronavirus transmission are probably real in some locations, although “it’s not at a high level yet. And we don’t really know how high it will go.”

“Maybe it’s just an upand-down thing,” he said in an interview. “But it’s just a symbol that it’s something we can’t just forget about.”

Regions to watch nationally include the South and Pacific

See Covid, Page A6

The WAshingTon PosT

SAN FRANCISCO — An increasingly vocal group of artists, writers and filmmakers are arguing artificial intelligence tools like chatbots ChatGPT and Bard were illegally trained on their work without permission or compensation – posing a major legal threat to the companies pushing the tech out to millions of people around the world.

OpenAI’s ChatGPT and imagegenerator Dall-E, as well as Google’s Bard and Stability AI’s Stable Diffusion, were all trained on billions of news articles, books, images, videos and blog posts scraped from the internet, much of which is copyrighted.

This past week, comedian

Sarah Silverman filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and Facebook parent company Meta, alleging they used a pirated copy of her book in training data because the companies’ chatbots can sum-

marize her book accurately. Novelists Mona Awad and Paul Tremblay filed a similar lawsuit against OpenAI. And more than 5,000 authors, including Jodi Picoult, Margaret Atwood and Viet Thanh Nguyen, have signed a petition asking tech companies to get consent from and give credit and compensation to writers whose books were used in training data.

Two class-action lawsuits were filed against OpenAI and Google, both alleging the companies violated the rights of millions of internet users by using their social media comments to train conversational AIs. And the Federal Trade Commission

Tribune ConTenT AgenCy

NORFOLK, Va. — Flying cars. Space tourism. Safe reentry for astronauts coming back from Mars. These technologies are still science fiction, but some won’t be for much longer, according to Charles “Mike” Fremaux, NASA Langley Research Center’s chief engineer for intelligent flight systems.

To test these concepts, particularly in regard to public and military safety, NASA Langley is building its first new wind tunnel

in more than 40 years. The NASA Flight Dynamic Research Facility, a project Fremaux has been pursuing for 25 years, will replace two smaller wind tunnels that are around 80 years old. The center’s most recent and largest, the National Transonic Facility, was built in 1980.

“These facilities are really kind of tailor-made for doing a lot of that work,” he said at a presentation at the Virginia Air & Space Science Center in Hampton on Tuesday. The talk was part of NASA

Langley’s Sigma Series community lectures.

“That’s not our traditional wheelhouse. We haven’t tested anything with a propeller on it in decades.”

That’s because many new craft will depend on electric vertical takeoff and landing, or “eVTOL,” technology. With likely dozens or even hundreds of private vehicles in the airways, research is needed to understand how vehicles will react in realworld conditions.

Fremaux expects some

of these technologies will likely be mainstream by 2040 or sooner.

The $43.2 million federal government contract to design and build the 25,000-square-foot facility went to BL Harbert International, a construction company based in Birmingham, Alabama. It is expected to open in early 2025.

The wind tunnel will be 130 feet tall, Fremaux said, comparing its capabilities to those it will replace: The

Songs on the radio from the ’70s were lying to us

Ispent a lot of time listening to the radio growing up and I am a firm believer in the superiority of music from the 1970s over a lot of what is produced today. That said, after listening to an old school playlist on YouTube music last week I have come to a sobering conclusion: ’70s songs were lying to us. I have collected a few examples.

‘Ventura Highway’ by America, 1972.

So I have driven down the Ventura Highway in the sunshine and never saw any alligator lizards in the air. I’m not even sure what an alligator lizard is, but I’m sure if they were there I would’ve seen them.

‘Bad, Bad Leroy Brown’ by Jim Croce, 1973.

Look, it’s possible that Leroy Brown was the baddest man in his whole damn town and he may even have been meaner than a junkyard dog, but King Kong would smoosh his bad, bad deluded butt.

‘Sorry Seems To Be the Hardest Word’ by Elton John, 1976.

Uh, no. According to “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” that was recently staged by Fairfield’s Missouri Street Theatre, the hardest word would be would “weltanschauung” which was spelled correctly by the winner William Barfée. Spoiler alert.

‘Behind Blue Eyes” by The Who, 1971.

The first line of this song

BRIGHT spot

says “No one knows what’s like to be the bad man, to be the sad man, behind blue eyes.” That’s a lie. It turns out that several serial killers had blue eyes including Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, Ed Gein and David Berkowitz.

‘I Am…I Said’ by Neil Diamond, 1971.

Check out this lyric:

“I am”... I said to no one there and no one heard at all not even the chair”

As far as I can tell from some intense internet research, chairs do not come equipped with ears, ear canals or brains and thus cannot hear or translate the vibrations into sound.

Now, Chairry, the talking armchair from “Pee Wee’s Playhouse,” evidently could but that is the exception that proves the rule. Also acknowledging Chairry might imply (correctly) that I watched it every week.

‘Joy to the World’ by Three Dog Night, 1970.

Good friends are hard to come by so far be it for me to pooh-pooh them. That said, if your good friend is a bullfrog named after a minor Biblical prophet who may need to attend Alcoholics Anonymous, you might want to reassess your priorities.

‘One Bad Apple’ by The Osmonds, 1970.

Alan, Wayne, Merrill, Jay and Donny Osmond sang “one bad apple don’t spoil the whole bunch, girl” in this bubblegum tune. Untrue. Actually once an apple is rotten or has physical damage like a bruise it pro-

duces ethylene, which in turn leads to a slightly increased internal temperature causing a breakdown of chlorophyll and the synthesis of other pigments which spreads to others. So ends my audition to take over for Bill Nye The Science Guy. ‘Stairway to Heaven’ by Led Zeppelin, 1971.

After about six-and-a-half minutes, the drums finally kick in in Zeppelin’s most famous song and the lyrics immediately following that dramatic musical shift are “If there’s a bustle in your hedgerow don’t be alarmed now, it’s just a spring clean for the May Queen.”

Now, I’m not sure who the May Queen is and supposedly there’s something sexual going on in those lyrics, but what I do know is that their admonition not to be alarmed by a bustle in your hedgerow is legally actionable. Because of them I ignored the bustle in mine and was attacked by a rabid weasel.

‘50 Ways To Leave Your Lover’ by Paul Simon, 1975.

While this song was a No. 1 hit, it lies. It purports to lay out 50 ways to leave your lover, but by my count it’s 45 ways short. Oh and it’s all well and good if your name is Jack, Stan, Roy, Gus or Lee, but what about Tony? Or worse, what about people with hard-torhyme names like Phineas and Beauregard?

‘Blame It On the Boogie’ by The Jacksons, 1978.

Whatever you do, do not take your legal advice from The Jacksons. Their admonition to steer clear of trying to pin blame on the sunshine, the moonlight and the good times and instead to blame it on the boogie is not a valid legal defense.

“I Shot the Sheriff” by Bob Marley, 1973.

The chorus “I shot the

sheriff, but I didn’t shoot no deputy” is ridiculous. It implies that it is somehow OK to off the person holding the higher office. Look, everybody in Mayberry from Goober to Floyd the Barber to Aunt Bee knows that shooting Andy Taylor would be worse than shooting

‘Band On the Run’ by Paul McCartney and Wings, 1973.

While it is the catchy title song from Wings’ triple-platinum album, having the jailer man and Sailor Sam search everyone for the band on the run is blatantly unconstitutional.

‘Nobody Does it Better’ by Carly Simon, 1977.

This theme song for the James Bond film “The Spy Who Loved Me” sets people up for failure because, with a few exceptions, there’s always going to be someone who can do it better, whatever it may be. Also that the line that says “nobody does it half as good as you” is demonstrably untrue. Daily Republic columnist Brad Stanhope writes humor columns that are precisely half as good as mine. I did the math. 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.”

CORRECTION POLICY

It is the Daily Republic’s policy to correct errors in reporting. If you notice an error, please call the Daily Republic at 425-4646 during business hours weekdays and ask to speak to the editor in charge of the section where the error occurred. Corrections will be printed here.

Tony Wade

The last laugh

Next Friends of the Library concert

features Los Tres de Winters band

WINTERS — The Winters Friends of the Library 2023 Summer Concerts at the Gazebo continue with local favorites Los Tres de Winters playing Norteño-style music from 7 to 8:30 p.m. Thursday at Rotary Park, Main Street at Railroad Avenue in downtown.

This music, with accordion, bajo sexto, and bass, is a hybrid of Mexican and Spanish vocal traditions with waltzes and polkas brought to Mexico by Czech and German immigrants in the mid-19th

century. It evolved in the north of Mexico and is now a favorite style throughout Mexico and the U.S.

Check out the band on YouTube.

All are welcome. Blankets and/or lawn chairs are encouraged.

The concerts are free, but donations are gratefully accepted. Winters Friends of the Library will have refreshments and quality used books for sale. Proceeds support the Winters Community Library.

For more information, visit wfol.org.

Ice Cream with a Cop set Saturday at mall

Daily Republic Staff

DRNEWS@DAILYREPUBLIC.NET

Los Tres de Winters will perform at 7 p.m. Thursday at Rotary Park in downtown Winters.

Seventh ‘Mission: Impossible’ chapter opens with $80 million at box office

tRibune content agency

Paramount Pictures’

“Mission: Impossible –

Dead Reckoning Part One” opened at the top of the domestic box office this weekend, amassing $56.2 million during the regular three-day window, according to studio estimates.

The seventh installment in the “Mission: Impossible” franchise –which debuted in theaters

Wednesday – grossed $80 million from the U.S. and Canada during its first five days, coming in shy of pre-release expectations. Early studio projections indicated that the big-budget action thriller would open with about $90 million.

Internationally, the film has earned $155 million for a worldwide total of $235 million.

With an estimated production budget of nearly $300 million, the film has a long way to go before becoming profitable. Enthusiastic reviews from critics and positive responses from audience surveys indicate that the movie could play well throughout the summer.

Directed by Christopher McQuarrie, “Mission:

Impossible 7 – Dead Reckoning Part One” stars Tom Cruise as international super-spy Ethan Hunt on yet another daring quest to save humanity. Among the supporting cast of the feature are Hayley Atwell, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson, Vanessa Kirby, Esai Morales and Pom Klementieff.

The latest chapter of the “Mission: Impossible” saga scored a glowing 96% fresh rating on review aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes and an A grade from audiences polled by CinemaScore.

Rounding out the top three at the domestic box office this weekend are Angel Studios’ “Sound of Freedom,” which added $27 million in its sophomore outing for a North American cumulative tally of $85.5 million; and Sony Pictures’ “Insidious: The Red Door,” which scared up $13 million in its second weekend for a domestic total of $58.1 million.

Next weekend, get ready for the ultimate summer movie showdown as Warner Bros.’ “Barbie” squares off against Universal Pictures’ “Oppenheimer” in wide release.

FAIRFIELD — The Police Department is celebrating National Ice Cream Day.

Residents are welcome to come out and share a cone, or a cup, with Fairfield police officials from 3 to 6 p.m. Saturday.

This is part of the Coffee with a Cop series, but with a summertime twist.

“No agendas, no speeches, just a lot of gelato and good conversation – plus games and prizes. This is a super family-friendly event, so bring out the little ones,” organizers said.

The event will be held at Tuttimelon on the first floor of Solano Town Center, across from Old Navy. The mall is located at 1350 Travis Blvd.

Vaca Saturday Club hosts summer fair

The Saturday Club of Vacaville will host a Summer Sip and Shop vendor fair.

The event will take place from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday at 125 W. Kendal St. in Vacaville. The fair will feature 25 local vendors selling handmade and custom items inside and outside the clubhouse. The first 200 guests who are 21 and older can receive a complimentary mimosa at the door with ID. There will also be an hourly drawing featuring items from the vendors at the event, according to a press release.

Admission to the Summer Sip & Shop is free.

Well-behaved dogs on leash are welcome in the outside portion of the event. Street parking is available on the blocks surrounding the event. A free public parking lot is located two short blocks away on the corner of Main and Cernon streets (in front of Maximum Fitness).

For more information, visit www.saturdayclubvacaville.com.

CASA looking for volunteers

Looking to make a difference in the life of a child?

Court Appointed Special Advocates for

Children will host Coffee with CASA, 9 to 11 a.m. Thursday. The event is at Journey Coffee, 370 Chadbourne Road. CASA of Solano County traces its roots back to 2011 when the Solano County Superior Court Executive Committee met with representatives of California CASA, National CASA, and the Judicial Council Administrative Office of the Courts, to discuss a proposal to bring CASA program to Solano County. The organization has about 50 volunteers but always needs more.

For more information, visit www.casasolano.org.

Virtual Fair Housing training on Zoom

A virtual Fair Housing Training will be held via Zoom from 1 to 3 p.m. Tuesday for housing providers.

Topics to be covered include: 1) an overview of federal/state fair housing laws and protected classes; 2) prohibited activities; 3) disability discrimination and reasonable accommodation/ modification requests; and 4) overview of enforcement actions. Registration is required at fairfield. ca.gov/housingauthority.

For more information, contact Tanya at ttran@ fairfield.ca.gov or Adriana at adriana@fairfhousing norcal.org.

Fire Safety Council meets Monday

An online Solano Fire Safe Council meeting has been scheduled for Monday. “We will be focusing on a discussion about prescribed fire topics,” organizers said.

The Zoom meeting begins at 5:30 p.m. Go to https://zoom.us/j/97 634136406?pwd=KzZx RHYwRWhxVm5ERU VkYVBjci9OQT09#suc cess. The Meeting ID is 938 8626 2801. The pass-

code is 401934. The meeting agenda will be released soon at www.solanofsc.org/ meetings.

Landowner program offers education

Landowners can receive a forest management education while qualifying for a free site visit from a registered professional forester over the coming months.

It is all part of the University of California Cooperative Extension program that is available in Solano, Yolo and Sacramento counties from Tuesday through Sept. 12.

“Oak-woodland and conifer-forest landowners who reside in Solano, Yolo and Sacramento counties are encouraged to learn about their forests and connect with natural resource professionals in their areas via participation in the next UCCE Forest Stewardship Workshop Series,” the Cooperative Extension stated in a press release.

“By participating, landowners can join the 94% of past participants who reported greater awareness of applying for and utilizing cost-sharing programs.”

The series has been recognized as the best Comprehensive Program for Family Forest Education award in 2022 by the National Woodland Owners Association, and the National Association of University Forest Resources Programs.

“These programs can be essential for small landowners who seek to make their forests resilient against wildfire as well. Upon completing the series, landowners will also be eligible for a free site visit from a local forester, certified range manager or a state- certified burn boss.”

The workshop series will address common concerns among California landowners, including but not limited to:

n Forest ecology and vegetation management.

n Financial planning and cost-sharing opportunities.

n Oak woodland management and targeted grazing.

Classes taking place on Tuesdays, 6 to 7:30 p.m.,

on Zoom. Participants will also engage in practical learning through a field day.

Community members interested in forest management, forest and fire ecology, and similar topics are also encouraged to register at http://ucanr. edu/forestryworskhop registration.

Government meetings on week’s calendar

Government meetings will be held this week. They are all open to the public. Some are in person and others online. Check the websites for more information.

The meetings will include:

n Fairfield Suisun Sewer District Board, 4:30 p.m. Monday, 1010 Chadbourne Road, executive conference room, Fairfield. Info: fssd.com.

n Fairfield City Council, 6 p.m. Tuesday, City Council chamber, 1000 Webster St. Info: www.fairfield.ca.gov/gov ernment/city-council/ city-council-meetings.

n Rio Vista City Council, 6 p.m. Tuesday, City Council chamber, City Hall, 1 Main St. Info: www.riovistacity.com/ citycouncil.

n Vacaville Planning Commission, 6 p.m. Tuesday, Vacaville City Hall council chamber, 650 Merchant St. Info: www.ci.vacaville.ca.us.

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

n Fairfield-Suisun School District, 6 p.m. Thursday, first floor board room at the Central Office, 2490 Hilborn Road, Fairfield. Info: https:// go.boarddocs.com/ca/ fsusd/board.nsf/public.

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

California woman released 8 months after her kidnapping

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A California woman who was kidnapped while walking her dog last year in Mexico has been released, federal authori-

ties said Saturday. Monica De Leon Barba, 30, of San Mateo, was kidnapped from a sidewalk in Tepatitlán, a city in the western Mexican state of Jalisco, on Nov. 29.

The FBI offered $40,000 for her return and released videos showing the vehicles that her kidnappers used. De Leon Barba’s dog was seen running loose in one

of the videos, but was later located by a family member, the agency said.

In a statement Saturday, the FBI said De Leon Barba was released Friday

night and was “safe and en route” to the U.S. No arrests have been made and the investigation into her captors’ identity continues, the agency said. NBC Bay Area reporter

Aaron Rosenblatt/Daily Republic file (2019)

Fairfield Police Chief Randy Fenn, center, talks to members of the community during Coffee with a Cop

at McDonald’s along Beck Avenue in Fairfield, April 30, 2019.

Courtesy photo

Gia Vang tweeted photos Saturday that showed De Leon Barba reunited with her brother Gustavo and her dog.

Paramount Pictures and Skydance/TNS

Tom Cruise, right, as Ethan Hunt and Esai Morales as Gabriel in “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One.”

Letters to the Editor

It’s hot today

Fairfield’s Fourth of July parade was the largest I’ve seen. Parking was a challenge. The day was warm and balmy.

Where was that dreaded global warming?

Everywhere else, it turns out.

That day was the hottest on record, worldwide. It was the hottest week, world-wide. It sparked a storm of doomsdayism from those scientists who know about it, and denials from – you guessed it – the American Right.

Jack Batson

“Yeah,” sniffed a Fox reporter cynically. “Hottest since 1979. Wow, gee,” he sneered. OK, the present, accepted methodology for measuring air temperature was set in 1979 but there are lots of prior readings that corroborate the trend.

Researchers from around the world have been working to understand climate for literally hundreds of years.

The Sonnblick Observatory, 10,000 feet atop the Alps in Austria, has been taking careful temperature measurements since 1886.

A German agency began temperature observations in Berlin in 1701. We have Ben Franklin’s water temperature daily observations from 1775 when he returned from Europe. The Royal Navy required its ships to note position, wind, and temperature measurements every four hours. We have Captain Bligh’s log book from the HMS Bounty. (He took it with him when he departed the ship to command his rowboat in 1789.)

The most famous climate collaboration was that of Mann, Bradley and Hughes in 1999 (MBH99). Using a mathematical methodology that is widely accepted today, they illustrated the famous “hockey stick.” That was a graph of the last 1,000 years showing global temperatures moving noticeably up in the mid-1970s. Then, beginning in the mid1990s, the temperature line skyrocketed upwards, far beyond the 1,000-year norm. Google it; you’ll be shocked. It correlates perfectly with the increase of CO2 caused by our use of fossil fuels.

You might remember some of the challenges to that discovery. Someone hacked into the research emails of East Anglia University in 2009 and showed that scientists disagreed strongly about climate models. Subsequent investigations concluded that the disputes were simply scientific discussions taken out of context.

Perhaps you remember Senator James Inhofe from Oklahoma (an oil state) in 2003 who roared, “could it be that man-made global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people?” It was a direct attack on MBH99, generously funded by the oil-rich Koch brothers.

There have been more than two-dozen scientific challenges to the graph but MBH99 has withstood all attacks. The most sophisticated climate model that spans not 1000 but 2000 years (PAGES 2k, in Switzerland) agrees with MBH99. It is still the gold standard today.

Besides the heat dome over our South recently, you don’t need to look far to see dramatic illustrations of man-made global warming. You’ve seen the photos of receding glaciers. Perhaps you’ve seen the before-andafter photos of Antarctica showing the sheet reduced by the size of four Texases. Or photos of dead fish on Texas beaches. Hurricanes and their storm surges are more violent and do more damage. You surely haven’t missed the California and Canadian wild fires and smoke. Upwards of 90% of the Great Barrier Reef is dying.

But unbelievers continue to deny humancaused warming as part of the Right’s revolt against science. Several weeks ago a TV newscaster in Iowa quit his weather reporting after 18 years. He received too many death threats when he reported warming as human caused. Texas governor Greg Abbott just signed a bill forbidding local governments to require work breaks in hot weather.

So we should talk about death by heat. We humans cool ourselves by sweating. But when humidity and heat are high (measured by the “wet bulb” temperature) sweat won’t evaporate resulting in heat stroke and possible death. Those living near water in a heat dome are especially vulnerable. Think Florida to Texas.

One climate writer estimates that denial will end when 20 million people in India and Pakistan die over a single week of extreme heat sometime in the foreseeable future.

I believe that UN Secretary-General Antonio Gutierrez is correct when he said recently, “We are moving into a catastrophic situation.”

Jack Batson is a former member of the Fairfield City Council. Reach him by email at jsbatson@prodigy.net.

Letters must be 325 words or less and are subject to editing for length and clarity. All letters must include the author’s name, address and phone number.

Send letters to Letters to the Editor, the Daily Republic, P.O. Box 47, Fairfield, CA 94533, email to sebastian.onate@mcnaughton.media or drop them off at our office, 1250 Texas St. in downtown Fairfield.

COMMENTARY

Was the NATO summit a diplomatic train wreck? Washington Post writers discuss.

Russian aggression.

In the run-up to this year’s NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, all eyes were on what prospects the alliance would give Ukraine on becoming a member.

No one expected Ukraine would be given full membership while its war with Russia was still going on. NATO membership stipulates that an attack on one member obliges the others to come to its aid. And President Biden, in particular, has gone to great lengths to ensure that NATO doesn’t get pulled into war with Russia over Ukraine.

But some kind of clear signal was expected. It did not come. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, upon learning of the final language of the NATO leaders’ communique, tweeted angrily on his way to Vilnius that it’s “unprecedented and absurd” not to set a time frame for Ukraine’s NATO membership. Members of the U.S. delegation were “furious” with Zelensky’s outburst, and in a private meeting reportedly urged him to cool down and embrace the security aid he was being promised.

Assignment editor Damir Marusic was joined by columnists Max Boot and Josh Rogin to discuss all this drama, and what implications it has for the future of the war in Ukraine.

Here are some edited excerpts:

NATO membership for Ukraine?

Max Boot: It was pretty clear that the alliance was not united on having Ukraine join anytime soon. There was opposition from the United States and Germany, the two most influential members. And I’m not sure it’s the wrong call either, because there are legitimate concerns. If you admit Ukraine to NATO anytime soon, you’re making NATO a direct party to a conflict with a nuclear armed state. The focus right now should be on providing as many weapons as possible to Ukraine for the success of their counteroffensive and to roll back the

THE RIGHT STUFF

And on that front, NATO allies are standing firm. They have actually been drawing closer to Ukraine with the creation of the NATO’s Ukraine Council and further pledges of arms. Was this a diplomatic train wreck?

Josh Rogin: This entire issue [of NATO membership] is a red herring - a distraction, and a silly one at that. We knew that the United States was always going to oppose real signs of speeding Ukraine’s membership and that they were just going to come up with some nonsense language that everyone was going to be equally unhappy with. All of the resulting controversy seems to be completely unnecessary.

Zelensky made a mistake. He built this into a big issue by being so public about his criticism, when he should have known that this is how it was going to turn out.

And for the Biden administration, all the focus on this is a useful distraction from what are the real problems with its Ukraine policy. Which is the issue of military support for Ukraine that Max mentioned: the Ukrainians are not getting as much as they need, not as much as they want, not as much as they’re calling for. And the United States is trailing behind European partners, including some NATO partners, on some key things. We spent three days talking about the language of the NATO communique. I couldn’t think of something less consequential to the result of the counteroffensive - and the most important goal: winning the war. With indefinite arms supplies, will this be a forever war?

Josh Rogin: The problem with that frame is that it assumes that if we just pulled support for Ukraine, the war would end. But Ukrainians are determined to fight with or without our help. So if we really want to avoid the forever war, the best thing we could do is to support them.

Max Boot: The only way you would have a realistic shot at NATO membership is if Ukraine and Russia achieve a sustainable stalemate. I’m thinking of something like the division of Germany into East and West Germany or the division of Korea into South and North Korea, where you have a very clearly fixed border that becomes fortified by both sides. And then the U.S. sends the signal that if you cross this line, we will go to war.

For the U.S. leadership to say, “We are willing to put U.S. troops on the front lines, we are willing to fight for Ukraine right now”- we’re not willing to do that. And it’s reasonable that we don’t want to be embroiled directly in a conflict with a nuclear armed adversary like Russia.

The Ukrainians have shown that they are very stalwart and skilled fighters and that they have made tremendous use of the weapons we have given them. The problem is we haven’t given them enough weapons. And I think that’s a disgrace and a mistake. We should be providing them dozens, if not hundreds, of F-16s so they can take control of the skies and move forward and push the Russians back. That’s how we can achieve that ultimately sustainable and defensible line.

That line is going to have to be on Ukraine’s 1991 internationally recognized borders. I don’t think anything short of that is going to be sustainable in the long term. Although I would put an asterisk on Crimea. I think that there is a potential for a deal on Crimea if the Ukrainians can take back Donbas and the rest of the Russian-occupied territory. They could say, “We’re not going to recognize Russian sovereignty over Crimea, but we’re going to live with it for now.”

Max Boot is a Washington Post columnist, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and the author of “The Road Not Taken: Edward Lansdale and the American Tragedy in Vietnam.” Josh Rogin is a columnist for the Global Opinions section of The Washington Post. He writes about foreign policy and national security. Damir Marusic is an assignment editor at Post Opinions.

Character and behavior matter, not complexion

We all have been told incessantly for decades that Blacks must have special assistance from government to succeed. Really? OK, for how long? How about equal opportunity? I grew up in the 1950s in Washington, D.C. with Democrat Party-promulgated “Jim Crow” segregation laws. I rode public transportation with white lines drawn on the floor separating the races. I lived segregation.

Jim McCully

I watched television coverage of the Montgomery bus-line boycott lead by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1956, and Republican President Eisenhower’s dispatch of federal marshals and federal troops to Little Rock. Arkansas, in 1957. I read about, and later witnessed, the results of activities of the Ku Klux Klan in Maryland and Virginia.

Like many middle-class children I was shielded from the effects of discrimination and segregation simply by the tacit attitude of “this is the way things are” and “you’ll understand when you are older.” Let me point to two important events I knew nothing of but proved significant. One was the 1941 call for a March on Washington, which never happened, by A. Philip Randolph, President of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters union, demanding an end to segregation in defense industries.

He got it. Why? The threatening war climate; therefore, political expediency. The result was President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Executive Order 8802, stating there should be “no discrimination in the employ-

ment of workers in defense industries or Government (reversing the 25-year history of federal employment discrimination instituted by Democrat President Wilson) because of race, creed, color, or national origin.”

Yet a year earlier Mr. Randolph had urged FDR to sign the anti-lynching bill proposed by Democrat Senators Wagner (N.Y.) and Costigan (Colo.). FDR feared losing senatorial support for his New Deal programs so political expediency won again over moral justice.

However, the pivotal event was the 1954 Supreme Court decision in Brown v. The Board of Education of Topeka Kansas, which outlawed segregation in public schools, and, by extension, other public tax-payer funded institutions. This sounded “Jim Crow’s” death knell.

But it took a real march, not a threatened one, on Oct. 25, 1958 – called The Youth March for Integrated Schools (mine was still segregated) – led by Mr. Randolph and including baseball great Jackie Robinson (who had broken Major League Baseball’s color barrier), Coretta Scott King, actor Harry Belafonte, Bayard Rustin civil rights activists and NAACP President Roy Wilkens. Ten thousand black and white citizens peacefully walked to the White House gaining national attention and embarrassing the Democrat controlled DC government. Integration moved forward. I went to an all-boys Catholic high school in D.C. Every day I took

public transportation across the city without incident. By 1961 at 15, D.C.’s schools were fully integrated. We had Blacks, Latinos, and Asians. We got along. Was everything perfect? No, we were teenage boys, but I think the basic reason things worked was religious teaching and our teachers kept us under control. We wore proper clothes; we had strict rules of conduct, which were enforced and supported by parents of all races, who paid for our education. Things were indeed changing.

Interestingly anti-lynching bills were brought before Congress 102 times since 1900. Thirty-fourhundred-and-fifty Black people were lynched between 1882 and 1968. Seven Presidents, Democrats and Republicans, petitioned Congress between 1890 and 1952 to outlaw lynching when it counted. The last lynching took place on March 21, 1981. A bill was finally signed in 2022, 41 years later. Apparently politically expediency won again as 2024 looms large.

Real positive change has happened. America has Black millionaires and billionaires, renown surgeons, a president and vice president, cultural icons, entrepreneurs, Supreme Court justices, etc. Can’t we let merit prevail? Isn’t that in everyone’s interest? Stop conniving fools from divide us with political expediency.

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

M ax Boot, Josh Rogin, and daMiR M aRusic

WASHINGTON POST

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Chalamet didn’t audition for ‘Wonka.’ The director saw his YouTube videos

Los A ngeLes Times

Timothée Chalamet’s old YouTube videos were his golden ticket to booking the role of Willy Wonka in “Wonka.”

“Wonka” director Paul King revealed this week in an interview with Rolling Stone that the 27-year-old actor was his first choice to play the eccentric confectioner. The filmmaker said he was drawn to Chalamet in part because of old footage he had seen online of the “Call Me by Your Name” and “Dune” star performing in school productions.

“It was a straight offer because he’s great and he was the only person in my mind who could do it,” King told Rolling Stone.

“But because he’s Timothée Chalamet and his life is so absurd, his high school musical performances are

on YouTube and have hundreds of thousands of views. So I knew from stanning for Timmy Chalamet that he could sing and dance really well.”

King made no mention, however, of what is perhaps the most viral dance video of Chalamet on the internet: a clip of the Oscar nominee performing an original rap years ago at a talent show under the stage name Lil’ Timmy Tim.

It’s unclear if Chalamet channeled Lil’ Timmy Tim and his smooth dance moves at any point while portraying Wonka, but King did suggest that a strong performance background was key to nailing the part.

“I knew that was in his arsenal, but I didn’t know how good he was,” King continued.

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

NASA

12-foot, Low-Speed Spin Tunnel built in 1939 and the 20-foot, Vertical Spin Tunnel built in 1940.

One project he worked on using the center’s other wind tunnels – there are currently around 16 operating, Fremaux said – was the Stardust Mission in 2006, the first spacecraft to bring back material from outside the moon’s orbit.

Without parachute technology developed at NASA Langley, it wouldn’t have been possible to recover samples from that mission, Fremaux said.

Now, along with testing the next generation of commercial, earthbound aviation, the Flight Dynamics Research Facility will provide experimental support for entry, descent and landing of missions returning from the moon and Mars, as well as exploration of Venus and Titan, a moon of Saturn.

The research will support human space exploration, contributing to the possibility of safe landing and reentry on a human mission to Mars.

The research will be similar to some NASA Langley has performed for nearly 100 years as public and private air traffic went from hard-to-imagine to hard-to-imagine-life-without, Fremaux said.

The tunnel will provide safeguards not just to the public, but for the technicians who work there.

“How are the models going to be launched and retrieved?” audience member Ronald Hermansderfer, 89, asked, referring to small, free-flying scale models.

“The plan is to do that just like we do now; a very skilled technician is going to launch the models by hand. That’s not a joke,” Fremaux said to murmurs from the audience. “That’s true, and we have one right here, now retired, who did it for many years. So I know that was a loaded question.”

Fremaux recognized Hermansderfer, who worked at the center as a technician from 1983 to 2002. Hermansderfer’s job was dangerous; if someone opened the wrong door elsewhere in the facility, affecting the pressure differential, a technician could be sucked into the wind tunnel while launching a model.

The new system will have a pressure equalization system, Fremaux said.

After the talk, Hermansderfer said that, as a kid, he used to set paper airplanes on fire and throw them out of windows. He did something remarkably similar in the testing tunnels at Langley. But it never really occurred to him he was in danger.

His son – also named Ronald Hermansderfer and also retired from NASA Langley – laughed.

“Maybe they just didn’t tell you,” he said.

opened an investigation into whether OpenAI violated consumer rights with its data practices.

Meanwhile, Congress held the second of two hearings focusing on AI and copyright Wednesday, hearing from representatives of the music industry, Photoshop maker Adobe, Stability AI and concept artist and illustrator Karla Ortiz.

“These AI companies use our work as training data and raw materials for their AI models without consent, credit, or compensation,” Ortiz, who has worked on movies such as “Black Panther” and “Guardians of the Galaxy” said in prepared remarks. “No other tool solely relies on the works of others to generate imagery. Not Photoshop, not 3D, not the camera, nothing comes close to this technology.”

The wave of lawsuits, high-profile complaints and proposed regulation could pose the biggest barrier yet to the adoption of “generative” AI tools, which have gripped the tech world ever since OpenAI launched ChatGPT to the public late last year and spurred executives from Microsoft, Google and other tech giants to declare the tech is the most important innovation since the advent of the mobile phone.

Artists say the livelihoods of millions of creative workers are at stake, especially because AI tools are already being used to replace some human-made work. Mass scraping of art, writing and movies from the web for AI training is a practice creators say they never considered or consented to.

But in public appearances and in responses to lawsuits, the AI companies have argued that the use of copyrighted works to train AI falls under fair use – a concept in copyright law that creates an exception if the material is changed in a “transformative” way.

“The AI models are basically learning from all of the information that’s out there. It’s akin to a

Covid

From Page One

Northwest. In the Southeast, the rate of weekly new Covid-19 hospital admissions hit a record low in June but has since climbed 12%. In the central South – the states of Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Arkansas and New Mexico – the rate has risen by 7% from its all-time low in recent weeks. In the Northwest, it’s up 10%.

Despite those increases, hospitalization rates remain very low. In fact, 6,220 new hospitalizations were recorded nationally for the week that ended July 1, the most recent period available. That’s a record low, and a 0.8% decrease from the previous week.

The national record high of new weekly Covid-19 hospitalizations was 150,674 for the week ending Jan. 15, 2022, during the first omicron wave.

In California, there were 1,181 new hospitalizations for the most current week available – low, but not quite to the all-time record of 870 recorded during the week ending April 16, 2022. The record high, seen the week ending Jan. 9, 2021, was 16,663.

Experts don’t expect anywhere near the sort of spikes observed earlier in the pandemic.

But they note it’s important for people, especially those who are older or otherwise at high risk of falling seriously ill, to have a Covid-preparedness plan and for everyone to

up to date on their

student going and reading books in a library and then learning how to write and read,” Kent Walker, Google’s president of global affairs, said in an interview Friday. “At the same time you have to make sure that you’re not reproducing other people’s works and doing things that would be violations of copyright.”

The movement of creators asking for more consent over how their copyrighted content is used is part of a larger movement as AI shifts long-standing ground rules and norms for the internet. For years, websites have been happy to have Google and other tech giants scrape their data for the purpose of helping them show up in search results or access digital advertising networks, both of which helped them make money or get in front of new customers.

There are some precedents that could work in the tech companies’ favor, like a 1992 U.S. Appeals Court ruling that allowed companies to reverse engineer other firms’ software code to design competing products, said Andres Sawicki, a law professor at the University of Miami who studies intellectual property. But many people feel there’s an intuitive unfairness to huge, wealthy companies using the work of creators to make new moneymaking tools without compensating anyone.

“The generative AI question is really hard,” he said.

The battle over who will benefit from AI is already getting contentious.

In Hollywood, AI has become a central flash point for writers and actors who have recently gone on strike. Studio executives want to preserve the right to use AI to come up with ideas, write scripts and even replicate the voices and images of actors. Workers see AI as an existential threat to their livelihoods.

The content creators are finding allies among major social media companies, which have also seen the comments and discussions on their sites scraped and used to teach AI bots how human con-

vaccinations.

“You won’t see a huge flood into the hospitals of people [with Covid], but you would probably see an increase,” Chin-Hong said. “But it could be quietened if they can stay away from the hospital by taking early therapy, like Paxlovid.”

Everyone age 6 years and older should get one updated PfizerBioNTech or Moderna Covid-19 vaccination, officials say. The most recent updated shot became available last September.

Doctors say it also remains wise to take sensible measures to ward off infection, such as avoiding sick people and getting tested if you have Covid symptoms. Keeping a mask handy so you can wear it if needed – like if you’re unlucky enough to sit on a plane next to coughing people spraying droplets in your face –would also be a good idea.

It’s become increasingly difficult to monitor Covid trends in the postemergency era, as many jurisdictions have either cut back or eliminated contemporary reporting of cases or other metrics.

There have been anecdotal reports of notable Covid outbreaks, including one on a cruise ship that recently docked in San Francisco, as well as one that affected a Bay Area television station, Chin-Hong said. But it’s unclear whether those point to any kind of larger trend.

Santa Clara County, the Bay Area’s most populous, reports that coronavirus levels in wastewater are at a “medium” level in recent weeks, and have

versation works. On Friday, Twitter owner Elon Musk said the website was contending with companies and organizations “illegally” scraping his site constantly, to the point where he decided to limit the number of tweets individual accounts could look at in at attempt to stop the mass scraping.

“We had multiple entities trying to scrape every tweet ever made,” Musk said. Other social networks, including Reddit, have tried to stop content from their sites from being collected as well, by beginning to charge millions of dollars to use their application programing interfaces or APIs – the technical gateways through which other apps and computer programs interact with social networks.

Some companies are being proactive in signing deals with AI companies to license their content for a fee. On Thursday, the Associated Press agreed to license its archive of news stories going back to 1985 to OpenAI. The news organization will get access to OpenAI’s tech to experiment with using it in its own work as part of the deal.

A June statement released by Digital Content Next, a trade group that includes the New York Times and The Washington Post among other online publishers, said that the use of copyrighted news articles in AI training data would “likely be found to go far beyond the scope of fair use as set forth in the copyright act.”

“Creative professionals around the world use ChatGPT as a part of their creative process, and we have actively sought their feedback on our tools from day one,” said Niko Felix, a spokesperson for OpenAI. “ChatGPT is trained on licensed content, publicly available content, and content created by human AI trainers and users.”

Spokespeople for Facebook and Microsoft declined to comment. A spokesperson for Stability AI did not return a request for comment.

stayed relatively stable over the last month.

The coronavirus test positivity rate in California over the most recent seven-day period available is 6.5%, up from 4.6% a week earlier. However, it’s possible that increase is partly affected by hospitals testing only those suspected of having a coronavirus infection, rather than every single patient.

Now that Paxlovid, an anti-Covid oral drug that can be taken after infection, has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, higherrisk people can talk to their health care providers about getting Paxlovid in advance of, say, an overseas trip if they think it’ll be hard to obtain the drug later, Chin-Hong said. That would enable people to take the pills quickly should they test positive for the coronavirus.

Given the situation, Chin-Hong said he wouldn’t advise his elderly mother to go on a cruise ship unless she’s armed with a pack of Paxlovid.

It can be helpful to have the Paxlovid conversation in advance of getting sick with Covid19, Chin-Hong said. That way, patients can talk with their regular health care providers about the possibility of interactions with other drugs they are taking. Clearing the use of Paxlovid will also help the patient get access to the drug sooner rather than later.

Without that pre-clearance, it’s possible health care providers unfamiliar with a patient’s medical history could rule out a Paxlovid prescription based on a mild drug inter-

“We’ve been clear for years that we use data from public sources – like information published to the open web and public datasets – to train the AI models behind services like Google Translate,” said Google General Counsel Halimah DeLaine Prado. “American law supports using public information to create new beneficial uses, and we look forward to refuting these baseless claims.”

Fair use is a strong defense for AI companies, because most outputs from AI models do not explicitly resemble the work of

captioned images, the companies have created “large language models” able to predict what the logical thing to say or draw in response to any prompt is, based on their understanding of all the writing and images they’ve ingested.

In the future, AI companies will use more curated and controlled data sets to train their AI models, and the practice of throwing heaps of unfiltered data scraped from the open internet will be looked back on as “archaic,” said Margaret Mitchell, chief ethics scientist at AI startup Hugging Face. Beyond the copyright problems, using open web data also introduces potential biases into the chatbots.

specific humans, Sawicki, the copyright law professor, said. But if creators suing the AI companies can show enough examples of AI outputs that are very similar to their own works, they will have a solid argument that their copyright is being violated, he said.

Companies could avoid that by building filters into their bots to make sure they don’t spit out anything that is too similar to an existing piece of art, Sawicki said. YouTube, for example, already uses technology to detect when copyrighted works are uploaded to its site and automatically take it down. In theory, AI companies could build algorithms that could spot outputs that are highly similar to existing art, music or writing.

The computer science techniques that enable modern-day “generative” AI have been theorized for decades, but it wasn’t until Big Tech companies such as Google, Facebook and Microsoft combined their massive datacenters of powerful computers with the huge amounts of data they had collected from the open internet that the bots began to show impressive capabilities.

By crunching through billions of sentences and

action that isn’t clinically relevant, Chin-Hong said.

The FDA says Paxlovid significantly reduces the percentage of people with Covid-related hospitalization or death from any cause. In one study of 977 patients who received Paxlovid and 989 who received only a placebo, less than 1% of patients who got Paxlovid were hospitalized with Covid-19 or died from any cause, compared with 6.5% of people who got the placebo.

With many people vaccinated or having previously survived a coronavirus infection, Covid-19 poses less of a threat than it once did. People need not panic if there is a rise in infections, Chin-Hong said, “because we have the tools. It’s just that you need to be aware of the tools.”

Still, infection can still lead to significant consequences, especially for older people.

Dr. Robert Wachter, chair of UC San Francisco’s Department of Medicine, recently came down with Covid-19 for the first time and fainted while taking a shower.

In a recent Twitter thread, Wachter said taking a hot shower while dehydrated and having Covid symptoms “can cause your blood vessels to dilate, leading to a dangerous drop in blood pressure.”

He lost consciousness and woke up in a pool of blood, apparently after falling to the floor and hitting his head on the lid of a bathroom trash. He said he suffered “a small subdural hematoma, a little rim of bleeding in the

“It’s such a silly approach and an unscientific approach, not to mention an approach that hits on people’s rights,” Mitchell said. “The whole system of data collection needs to change, and it’s unfortunate that it needs to change via lawsuits, but that is often how tech operates.”

Mitchell says she wouldn’t be surprised if OpenAI has to delete one of its models completely by the end of the year because of lawsuits or new regulation.

OpenAI, Google and Microsoft do not release information on what data they use to train their models, saying that it could allow bad actors to replicate their work and use the AIs for malicious purposes.

A Post analysis of an older version of OpenAI’s main language-learning model showed that the company had used data from news sites, Wikipedia and a notorious database of pirated books that has since been seized by the Department of Justice.

Not knowing what exactly goes into the models makes it even harder for artists and writers to get compensation for their work, Ortiz, the illustrator, said during the Senate hearing.

“We need to ensure there’s clear transparency,” Ortiz said.

space around the brain,” and a cervical fracture. Wachter said he doesn’t know how he got infected. He hasn’t treated Covid patients and wears a KN95 mask in clinical areas. However, he has taken off his mask for meetings in non-crowded rooms and has been dining and socializing indoors.

Given his experience, “Covid continues to be worth avoiding if you can,” Wachter wrote. In Los Angeles County, Covid-19 hospitalization levels have fallen to a record low. And the concentration of coronavirus in local wastewater is just 8% of last winter’s peak, according to the county Department of Public Health.

“Although transmission is still occurring, there is low concern for rapid spread of the virus at this time,” the agency said in a statement this week.

Weekly Covid-19 deaths remain relatively low, with 13 reported for the week that ended Tuesday – down from 29 the previous week.

Californians who don’t have insurance or are having a hard time getting a prescription for anti-Covid medication can make a free phone or video appointment through the state’s Covid-19 telehealth service, reachable through sesamecare. com/covidca or by calling 833-686-5051.

Most insurance plans in California are still required under state law to reimburse insured people for the cost of eight at-home Covid tests for every covered person monthly.

‘It’s such a silly approach and an unscientific approach, not to mention an approach that hits on people’s rights.’

— Margaret Mitchell, chief ethics scientist at AI start-up Hugging Face

Monday, July 17, 2023

SECTION

Giants erupt in 10th to sweep Phillies

Tribune ConTenT AgenCy

Slumbering offensively for the better part of the previous 18 innings, the Giants erupted for five runs in the 10th Sunday in an 8-4 win over the Pittsburgh Pirates to complete a three-game sweep at PNC Park.

The Giants opened the ninth with a single by Wilmer Flores against Pittsburgh reliever Yerry De Los Santos (0-1), advancing free runner Casey Schmitt to third base. Pederson was next

and flew out to center to drive in Schmitt, and after J.D. Davis walked, Michael Conforto doubled to right center to bring in two more runs. They weren’t done, with Patrick Bailey, who had entered as defensive replacement, doubling in two more runs for a five-run lead. The Giants, 52-41, are 11 games over .500 for the third time this season and have yet to make it to 12 heading into a fourgame road series against the Cincinnati Reds. Pitts-

A’s let another close game slip away as losing skid hits 7

Tribune ConTenT AgenCy

OAKLAND — Oakland’s top starter JP Sears went 6 1/3 innings, the highly-touted prospects Tyler Soderstrom and Zack Gelof both had hits and DH Jordan Diaz mashed a home run with two RBIs.

And yet, the A’s, a team known for futility, still found another unique and painful way to lose a baseball game on Sunday afternoon.

The Twins still earned the series sweep 5-4 thanks to another poor showing by A’s relief pitching.

Oakland led for six innings while starter JP Sears struck out seven and kept Minnesota’s offense under control, aside from home runs by Christian Vasquez and Alex Kirilloff in the fifth inning.

But after Sears began to falter, manager Mark Kotsay asked San Jose native Lucas Erceg to preserve a one-run lead.

As it has done so many times this season, the bullpen collapsed in a high-pressure situation.

Kirilloff cleared the bases with a three-RBI double to give Minnesota a 5-3 lead, and the Twins’ bullpen took care of business afterward to stay atop the AL Central with a 48-46 record.

Erceg gave up two hits, walked a pair and did not record an out before being replaced by Shintaro Fujinami.

“This is his first time in the big leagues, and he’s gonna go through these up and downs,” A’s manager Mark Kotsay said. “The game wasn’t lost just because of Lucas. We had opportunities to score today … and to add on to that lead that we had, and we weren’t able to.”

The A’s seventh

burgh is 41-52.

Heading into the 10th, the Giants had nine hits and had struck out 26 times in the previous 18 innings against Pirates pitching. Conforto also had a clutch run-scoring single in Saturday night’s win and had five hits and five RBIs in the series.

Conforto didn’t wait around against De Los Santos, jumping on the first pitch for the 10thinning double. “I definitely wanted to be ready for the fastball right away,” Conforto told

Peacock in a postgame interview. “He’s got a good fastball and I kind of set my sights on the inside part of the plate. He’s got a good sinker that runs back toward the middle. I got the pitch I wanted and put a good swing on it.”

Ryan Walker, who pitched a scoreless ninth for the Giants improved to 3-0. Scott Alexander gave up one run in the 10th and was the sixth Giants pitcher, following Alex Wood, Tristan Beck, Tyler Rogers, Taylor Rogers and Walker.

The Giants rested closer Camilo Doval, who had saves in each of the first two wins of the series as well as a 16-pitch effort in Tuesday night’s All-Star game in Seattle.

The Pirates tied it in the eighth with an uncharacteristic wild spell from Tyler Rogers, who opened the inning in place of middle reliever Beck.

After Andrew McCutchen opened with a single, Rogers walked both Carlos Santana and Henry Davis to load the bases on 3-2 counts, with the pitch

to Santana appearing to catch the top of the zone.

Jared Triolo was next, and his fly to right brought home McCutchen with the tying run. Taylor Rogers replaced his twin brother at that point, and he escaped the inning with further damage despite the Pirates re-loading the bases. Wood didn’t make it through the fourth although he had been on somewhat of a roll after a rough start. After getting the first two outs of the

straight loss, which dropped the team’s record to 25-70, started with promise.

After a scoreless inning and a half, Jordan

Diaz welcomed San Francisco native Joe Ryan back to the Bay with a solo home run into the left-field stands, his sixth of the season and first hit at the Coliseum.

The 9,335 who ventured out to the Coliseum were narrowly denied enjoying back-to-back Diaz jacks when Aledmys Diaz’ shot into left came up a few feet short of clearing the fence.

“I’m always practicing and giving it 100 percent,” said Jordan Diaz when asked about how he stays in rhythm as part of a platoon system.

“When it’s around the fifth inning, I come over to the batting cages and I’m just swinging that bat to be ready for when I do get called on.”

Sears cruised through the early portion of the game, allowing one hit through the first four innings and striking out five. He finished with seven strikeouts and just four hits allowed in his team-high 19th start of the season.

“The changeup was working really well today,” said Sears, who reached 100 strikeouts on the season. “I’m obviously upset with the two pitches that went out, but overall I just felt good.”

The Diaz’s struck again in the bottom of the fourth, when the pair drove in one RBI apiece to extend Oakland’s lead to 3-0 as Ryan went 5 1/3 innings and struck out seven.

Both of Oakland’s highly touted call-ups, first baseman Tyler Soderstrom and second baseman Zack Gelof got

Alcaraz ends Djokovic’s reign at Wimbledon in final thriller

Tribune ConTenT AgenCy

LONDON — Carlos Alcarez ended Novak Djokovic’s remarkable Wimbledon success run when he fought to a stunning 1-6, 7-6 (8-6), 6-1, 3-6, 6-4 triumph for a first title at the grass court grand slam and second at the majors on Sunday.

Alcaraz, 20, regrouped from a poor first set and saved a set point in the second to win a sensational battle of the tennis generations against his 36-year-old opponent in 4 hours 42 minutes on first match point.

He snapped Djokovic’s winning tiebreak run at the majors at 15 in the second set, and won an extraordinary fifth game in the third set which lasted 26 minutes before claiming the deciding break for 2-1 in the final set to deny Djokovic a fifth straight title at the All England Club.

It was a strong turnaround for the Spanish

youngster who had crashed in straight sets against Djokovic in the recent French Open semifinals, overwhelmed by the occasion.

Alcaraz became the third-youngest Wimbledon champion in the Open Era which started in 1968, behind Boris Becker (17) and Björn Borg (2-0), under the eyes of Spanish King Felipe VI who was in attendance.

He retained the world number one position ahead of Djokovic and showed that he can shine on grass, having also won the Queen’s Club tune-up event last month.

Alcaraz’ previous title at the majors came at last year’s US Open.

“This is a dream come true for me,” Alcaraz said. “It’s great to win, but even if I would have lost, I would have been really proud of myself.

“Making history in this beautiful tournament, playing a final against a legend of our sport. I’m

really, really proud of myself, the team that I have, the work that we put in everyday.”

He added in the direction of Djokovic: “I started playing tennis watching you. Since I was born you were already winning tournaments. It is amazing.”

Djokovic meanwhile missed what would have been record-tying five Wimbledon titles in a row, eight overall there and 24 at all grand slams in his first Wimbledon centre court defeat since 2013.

The loss in a record 35th major final also ended his bid for a calendar year grand slam ahead of the US Open, having won the Australian and French Open earlier in the year.

But Djokovic was graceful in defeat, saying: “It was not so good for me but good for Carlos. I thought I would have trouble against you on clay and hard court but not on grass court. What

a way to adapt to the surface, amazing. “Praise to Carlos. What quality at the end of the match. You deserve it absolutely.”

“You never like to lose matches like these but when the emotions are settled I must still be grateful. It’s a tough one to swallow, when you are so close, but these are the moments you work for every day. I didn’t win but lost against the better player.”

Djokovic stormed off to a 5-0 lead before Alcaraz finally got on the scoreboard after half an hour, with a superb passing shot on his forehand with which he had made several unforced errors before, but it was too late to save the set.

Alcaraz was however finally in the match and went break up for 2-0 in the second set when Djokovic hit a forehand wide – only his fourth

See Alcaraz, Page B6

Rain, flash flood potential postpones

NASCAR Cup Series race at NH

Tribune ConTenT AgenCy NASCAR’s premier series will race on Monday.

The Cup Series race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway has been postponed to noon Monday, the sanctioning body announced Sunday. The decision came after rain poured on Loudon, N.H., for hours – with local

forecasts showing that there was the potential for flash floods later in the afternoon.

Fans can watch the Crayon 301 on USA Network, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio and PRN.

Monday’s forecast shows less than a 10% chance of rain. This is the third time a

Cup race has been postponed to another day in 2023. The first was in Dover in April, and the other came at Charlotte Motor Speedway for the Coca-Cola 600 in May.

As with the Coke 600 earlier this year, fans with unscanned Sunday tickets may exchange them ticket-for-

ticket for equal or lesser value toward any other Speedway Motorsports NASCAR or IndyCar race during the next calendar year.

Christopher Bell, last year’s winner at this racetrack, will start on the pole on Monday, followed by Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Martin Truex Jr.

Jose Carlos Fajardo/Bay Area News Group Oakland Athletics’ Aledmys Diaz (12) bobbles a ball hit by Minnesota Twins’ Edouard Julien (47) in the seventh inning of their MLB game at the Coliseum in Oakland, Sunday3. The Minnesota Twins defeated the Oakland Athletics 5-4.

See Giants, Page B6

Julian Finney/Getty Images/TNS

Carlos Alcaraz of Spain celebrates winning Championship Point in the Men’s Singles Final against Novak Djokovic of Serbia on day 14 of The Championships Wimbledon 2023 in London, England, Sunday.

Too many pets in the bed

Dear Annie: I used to be in a battle with my husband because he insisted on sleeping with our dog and cat. We had a Jack Russell terrier that used to sleep in bed with us, plus the cat.

While that was fine before we had our oldest daughter, afterward it was not OK. I allowed the dog and cat in our bed for a month after moving our daughter to her crib in her room right next to ours. What would happen, though, is that any time the dog would lick her paws or shake, I’d jump awake thinking the baby woke up. Same thing with the cat; as she’d jump on or off the bed, it would scare me awake. I couldn’t get any sleep!

I asked my husband to keep the animals out of our bed at night. Even though he wasn’t happy about kicking the dog out of the room, he still did it.

As far as baths go, I give her baths at least once every month or every other month, and I wash her bedding a day or two

ARIES (March 21-April 19). People don’t always do what they say they will, but you’re willing to work with them anyway in hopes of a better outcome. There is no wrong move today, but there are benefits to doing the thing that is a little harder for you.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20).

Only you know how to best serve the interests of those close to you. You’ll care for loved ones like no other. There’s a secure feeling for anyone lucky enough to be on your team.

GEMINI (May 21-June 21).

For those committed to growth and improvement, fear is an inevitable part of life. You’ll talk yourself through some helpful, positive ideas. Fear may not go away, but you don’t need it to. The important thing is not to let it stop you.

CANCER (June 22-July 22).

Your senses keep you connected to a vital physicality today. Your body is part of the nature it moves through. You’ll explore delights that simultaneously contribute to both health and pleasure.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22). You can be serious in your intent without being heavy-handed in your approach. There’s no right or wrong perspective, but there are ways of seeing things that are more or less helpful in moving you toward a particular goal.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22).

Credentials point to where a person has been, but they can’t guarantee outcomes going forward. As you decide who to

after her bath. This situation doesn’t need to be permanent. I am thinking about proposing that we work out a schedule on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays for the dog and cat to sleep in their own beds. Along with asking my husband to give the dogs baths more often, I also think he should be washing the bedding more, since he has more free time than I do. — Not Dog

Tired Anymore

Dear Not Dog Tired

Anymore: The idea of a schedule and asking him to wash the dog more often is a good one. Compromise and finding the middle road usually work out for the best when there is disagreement over an issue. They say that whenever there is a conflict about something – and an agreement is reached – if each party is a little bit disappointed with the outcome and a little bit happy, then it was the right compromise.

Dear Annie: After my

Today’s birthday

Welcome to a year of new influences. Because you’ll become more like the people who are around you, you’ll seek the company of those you admire and be welcomed into their fold. More highlights: Ten small but very lucrative investments, a challenge that winds up defining a project, and a life-changing invitation. Taurus and Pisces adore you. Your lucky numbers are: 3, 31, 6, 17 and 42.

entrust with a job, pay more attention to the current interaction than to past credentials.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 23). Give yourself props for the dozens of little things you do to keep this show on the road. Every time you treat yourself right, feed someone, help others get where they’re going and the like, it’s a triumph.

SCORPIO (Oct. 24-Nov. 21). You fit many different descriptions, and yet you’re far too complex to fill out just one, so getting to know you takes time. Anyone who tries to assess you in terms of a category will wind up limiting their knowledge of you.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22Dec. 21). With a stranger, you can shine in the moment without thinking about the past or future of a relationship. There’s some magic in this, and you’ll have fun discovering who

father’s suicide, I learned about grief from the inside out and quickly discovered that I had known nothing at all when viewing it only from the outside as an observer.

The most helpful resource I found was the book “Understanding Mourning” by Glen Davidson. He shows how grief is typically a two-year process, not a two-week one. Yes, that is highly inconvenient for most people, especially in our fastpaced “give it to me now” culture, but it is what it is.

You cannot hurry it any more than you can hurry a sunrise. — Knows Grief Well Dear Knows Grief: I am so very sorry for your loss and want to thank you for the book recommendation. I hope it helps others heal their grief, and, for those who want to comfort the grieving, I hope it helps with patience and perspective.

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

you are within the fresh context of a new person’s eyes.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22Jan. 19). You don’t want to borrow trouble, though you may anticipate it for the sake of preparation. It’s OK to think about what could go wrong, but do so only long enough to create safeties, solutions and contingencies.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20Feb. 18). Many opinions sound reasonable enough but are patently false. Question all critical assertions, especially those made by your own inner critic. It’s not necessary to try and control or judge yourself to any strict degree today.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20).

The past is an anchor that you do not have to tether yourself to. You will come to terms with what happened and let go of your grievances, freeing you to soar above what was once burdensome.

CELEBRITY PROFILES:

He’s been the Entertainer of the Year, an “American Idol” judge and No. 1 hit maker, though what Luke Bryan is perhaps most proud of is the good he’s able to do in the world sharing his heart and philanthropy in organizations such as the Brett Boyer Foundation, founded in memory of his niece. Bryan’s sun and communication planet Mercury were in Cancer, the sign associated with home and America, two prevalent themes in country music.

Write Holiday Mathis at HolidayMathis.com.

Crossword by Phillip

Bridge

HOW MANY COLORS ARE THERE IN BRIDGE?

The dogmatic believe everything can be seen as black or white – there is no gray. It’s the same in bridge deals. Usually there’s a right line of declarer play or defense, but occasionally it isn’t so straightforward. The mathematicians get out their calculators and

Alder

estimate that one line, let’s call it Line A, is, say, 72.4% and the alternative, the imaginatively named Line B, is 75.3%. They pour scorn on the poor player who adopts Line A – unless Line A works when Line B would not. Then they grumble about anomalies.

In today’s deal, against four hearts, West leads the spade three, low from three in an unsupported suit even without an honor in that suit. It is clearly white or black for South to win the first trick with the spade ace, cash the spade king, ruff the spade four on the board and play a club to his king. Now things get grayer. It’s tempting for South to lead a low club, hoping to bring down the ace. However, here that costs the contract. West wins with the jack and switches to the diamond jack. South ruffs the second diamond, but when the hearts break 4-2, he has lost trump control.

Knowing East must have the diamond ace for his opening bid, the right play at trick five is the club queen. This forces East to win the trick. He cannot do better than switch to a trump. South draws all of the hearts and concedes another club trick. Declarer collects these 10 tricks: two spades, five hearts, two clubs and one spade ruff in the dummy.

COPYRIGHT: 2023, UNITED FEATURE SYNDICATE

Sudoku by Wayne Gould

7/17/23

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 7/15/23:

Horoscopes by Holiday Mathis

Annie Lane

Dear Annie

‘Earth Mama,’ Savanah Leaf’s portrait of Black motherhood,

is a quietly extraordinary debut

Justin Chang

LOS ANGELES TIMES

Early on in “Earth Mama,” a quietly shattering first feature from writer-director Savanah Leaf, we find ourselves in a room with a Black woman named Gia (Tia Nomore) as she spends time with her young son, Trey (Ca’Ron Coleman). It’s a drab, anonymous-looking room, with bare walls and a few toys scattered perfunctorily about, but Leaf and her cinematogra pher, Jody Lee Lipes, use the space to tell a story in intimate, heartrending miniature.

The camera, never blink ing, slowly pulls back to reveal Gia’s daughter, Shaynah (Alexis Rivas), sitting by herself, clearly too upset to talk to or play with her mom (she was late, there was traffic). And in time, it moves back even farther to reveal another woman standing in the background, alerting us, if we didn’t know already, that this isn’t an unsupervised visit.

Gia is a single woman trying to regain custody of her two kids, who have been in foster care for some time. At present, she sees Shaynah and Trey for just one supervised hour a week; Gia spends the rest of her time working at a photo store and taking court-ordered classes meant to establish (or discredit) her fitness as a mother. Other details flicker briefly into the foreground: her history of drug use, the waning account balance on her phone card. Another quietly but insistently announces itself in scene after scene: Gia is pregnant with her third child, due to arrive in just a few weeks.

All of which casts Gia, in the estimation of her close but not always sympathetic friend Trina (Doechii), as the product and pawn of a deeply broken system – one that disproportionately affects Black mothers and children, sweeping them up in grim intergenerational cycles of separation, addiction and poverty. Leaf appreciates the basic truthfulness of this assessment without suggesting that it tells anything close to the full story or that it should be granted the final word.

Indeed, Trina’s shorthand invocation of “the system” may say more about her fondness for speechifying than about Gia’s specific circumstances. That becomes even clearer when Trina begins exhorting Gia with passages from the Book of Jeremiah, a well-meaning gesture that her friend accepts in polite but inscrutable silence. Gia doesn’t say much, not even when she should, as when a teacher encourages her to participate in a class discussion. She prefers to watch and listen.

Leaf, it appears, prefers to do the same. A British-born former volleyball player and 2012 Olympic athlete-turned-

Daily Cryptoquotes

Here’s how to work it:

MOVIE Review

director and photographer, she makes a strikingly assured feature debut here – one that plays like a longer, fictionalized elaboration of some of the stories she told her in her 2020 short documentary, “The Heart Still Hums” (co-directed with actor Taylor Russell).

For “Earth Mama,” Leaf and Lipes shot on 16-millimeter film, imparting a suitably grainy, rough-hewn look to a story that unfolds mostly through quotidian rituals and stray details. One recurring bit follows the flow of customers through the photo store, where they pose for family portraits against colorful vacationthemed backdrops.

There’s an obvious contrast between these cheesy-idyllic visions of family togetherness and Gia’s struggle to be with her kids, but Leaf doesn’t hammer the point home. Instead, she allows Gia’s longing to just barely break the surface of her warmly smiling, unfailingly professional demeanor.

If the filmmaking feels poetic and subdued, it’s the opposite of coy. Leaf is confident enough to let her images, as much as her written dialogue, do much of the narrative lifting. A glimpse of the Pacific Ocean, the sun shimmering on its steady surface, feels like a balm; a simple shot of a car backing out of a parking lot, carrying Shaynah and Trey back to their foster home, distills a whole world of yearning.

At key moments, the movie breaks with realism entirely, drawing us into its heroine’s subconscious with surreal yet oddly becalmed flourishes.

Gia dreams of a small stump of umbilical cord sprouting from her own navel; later, she wanders, pregnant and naked,

through a shadowy forest glade, a place of darkly enveloping refuge.

Nomore, an Oakland, California-based rapper appearing on film for the first time, is a naturally expressive screen presence, as becomes especially clear during these wordless interludes. Gia’s reserve never feels evasive or affected; it feels like a carapace, donned by someone who’s been through a lot and knows better than to put her trust in people.

You see that instinctive wariness – but also a flicker of optimism, and perhaps of conviction – when Gia begins talking with a social worker, Miss Carmen (a terrific Erika Alexander), about the possibility of an open adoption for her soon-to-arrive baby. That ambivalence persists when Gia meets with a prospective couple (Sharon Duncan-Brewster and Bokeem Woodbine) and their teenage daughter (Kamaya Jones), in a sequence written, directed, acted and shot with galvanizing restraint, so palpable yet unforced in its compassion for everyone in the camera’s view.

The fate of Gia’s third child –and of her two older children, and the devastating reality that she might have to choose among them – brings “Earth Mama” to a powerful, dramatic boil and a natural point of closure. But it’s to Leaf’s credit that there’s nothing simplistic, and certainly nothing proscriptive, about how that closure takes place.

At its simplest, this is a story about how Gia learns to trust again, to reject the myth of selfsufficiency. She learns anew just how closely bound she is to the other Black women around her: Miss Carmen, Trina, her friend Mel (a quietly unyielding Keta Price) and her classmates, some of whom relate their own affecting accounts of struggle and resilience.

These are ordinary stories, Leaf humbly suggests, even as she tells them with extraordinary depth of feeling.

Word Sleuth

Crossword by Phillip

Bridge

FLIP A COIN OR CONSULT A MYSTIC

Most of the time at the bridge table, there are sufficient clues to tell you which opponent has the key missing card on which your fortress is precariously balanced. Occasionally, though, you must just guess. Then adopt your method of choice: eenymeeny or a coin toss or a ouija board.

Alder

What would you do in this deal from an online duplicate? There are lots of matchpoints at stake. If you go down one in four spades, you get a 13.3% score, but making the contract is worth 60%.

West leads the diamond king (from ace-king or king-queen) and shifts to the heart five. East takes this trick and the next heart. When he leads a third heart, you must decide who holds the spade queen. If it is East, ruff with the spade jack. If it is West, ruff with the spade ace and run the jack through him. What is your guess?

North should have bid differently. First, he might have opened one spade, especially if he would be allowed by system constraints to rebid either two no-trump or three clubs after a two-diamond response. Second, though he did have the maximum pass he wished to convey with the three-heart cue-bid, this permitted West immediately to lead through the heart king. If North had simply jumped to four spades, East would have been on lead. When he was, he inevitably led his singleton. Then, with spades 2-2, each declarer cruised home. At the table, the winning play for South was to ruff with the spade jack. Did you get it right? I didn’t.

COPYRIGHT: 2023, UNITED FEATURE SYNDICATE

Sudoku by Wayne Gould

Bridge

7/18/23

Fill in the grid so that every row, every column and every 3x3 grid contains the digits

FLIP A COIN OR

CONSULT A MYSTIC

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

Most of the time at the bridge table, there are sufficient clues to tell you which opponent has the key missing card on which your fortress is precariously balanced. Occasionally,

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Difficulty level: SILVER

Yesterday’s solution:

© 2023

Gabriel Saravia/A24 Films/TNS

Ca’Ron Coleman, left, Tia Nomore and Alexis Rivas in “Earth Mama.”

Barbie goes live in movie theaters

SuSan Hiland SHILAND@DAILYREPUBLIC.NET

FAIRFIELD — It’s a dream come to life for many little girls, as Barbie gets her first liveaction film.

Also showing in theaters locally is a movie about the man who helped create the atomic bomb.

Opening nationwide are:

“Barbie,” in this film, Barbie comes alive as a doll living in ‘Barbieland’ is expelled for not being perfect enough and sets off on an adventure in the real world. This film is rated PG-13.

“Oppenheimer,” this movie is a story about J. Robert Oppenheimer and the creation of the atomic bomb. This film is rated R.

Opening in limited release are:

“Cobweb,” in this film, 8-year-old Peter is plagued by a mysterious, constant tap from inside his bedroom wall. His parents insist is all in his imagination. As Peter’s fear intensifies, he believes that his parents (Lizzy Caplan and Antony Starr) could be hiding a terrible, dangerous secret and questions his trust in them. This film is rated R.

“Fear the Night,” in this film, an Iraqi war veteran Tess takes revenge on a group of home invaders attack who attacked her sister’s bachelorette party,

and she discovers that they are hellbent on not leaving any witnesses behind. This film is not rated.

“Mother May I?” in this frightening tale, a young man’s fiancée, Anya, starts behaving like his recently deceased mother, as Emmett is forced into a nightmarish game of therapy but he soon begins to think something else is going on and his mother is possessing his fiancée. This film is rated PG-13.

“Natty Knocks,” in this spooky film, babysitter Britt Henderson and the kids she’s charged with protecting must survive the horrors of serial killer Abner Honeywell, the son of B-movie horror legend who is raining terror across their small town on the eve of Halloween. This film is not rated. 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.

The man at the center of ‘Sound of Freedom’ abruptly leaves group he founded

THe WaSHingTon PoST

The former federal agent whose anti-trafficking exploits inspired a hotly debated film that became an unexpected box-office hit this month has parted ways with the controversial organization he founded.

Tim Ballard has “recently stepped away” from Operation Underground Railroad, the group said in a statement.

Ballard, a former Department of Homeland Security agent who has helped stage sting operations to catch child sex traffickers, left OUR before “Sound of Freedom” hit theaters, the organization said. Vice News first reported his exit earlier Thursday.

The news of Bal-

lard’s exit comes barely more than a week after “Sound of Freedom” – a dramatized retelling of Ballard’s anti-trafficking efforts – nearly outearned Disney blockbuster “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” on July 4, and just a week before a planned screening by former president Donald Trump.

The film has since become a hot-button discussion point for critics, conspiracy theories and major movie studios for twisting facts about child exploitation and tipping its hat to QAnon conspiracy theorists.

Ballard has not mentioned his exit during press interviews for “Sound of Freedom.”

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

PUBLIC NOTICES

E. WILSON CASE NO. PR23-00214

Toallheirs,beneficiaries,creditors,contingentcreditors,andpersonswhomayotherwisebeinterestedintheWILLorestate,orbothofDEBORAHELAINEWILSONAKA DEBORAHE.WILSON.

APETITIONFORPROBATEhasbeenfiledbyJUDYLAFEARintheSuperiorCourtof California,CountyofSolano.

THEPETITIONFORPROBATErequeststhatJUDYLAFEARbeappointedaspersonal representativetoadministerth eestateofthedecedent.

THEPETITIONrequestsauthoritytoadministertheestateundertheIndependentAdministrationofEstatesAct.(Thisauthoritywillallowthepersonalrepresentativetotakemany actionswithoutobtainingcourtapproval.Beforetakingcertainveryimportantactions however,thepersonalrepresentativewillberequiredtogivenoticetointerestedpersons unlesstheyhavewaivednoticeorconsentedtotheproposedaction.)Theindependent administrationauthoritywillbegrantedunlessaninterestedpersonfilesanobjectionto thepetitionandshowsgoodcausewhythecourtshouldnotgranttheauthority.

AHEARINGonthepetitionwillbeheldinthiscourtasfollows:08/08/23at9:00AMin Dept.22locatedatOLDSOLANOCOURTHOUSE, 580TEXASSTREET,FAIRFIELD CA94533

IFYOUOBJECTtothegrantingofthepetition,youshouldappearatthehearingand stateyourobjectionsorfilewrittenobjectionswiththecourtbeforethehearing.Yourappearancemaybeinpersonorbyyourattorney.

IFYOUAREACREDITORoracontingentcreditorofthedecedent,youmustfileyour claimwiththecourtandmailacopytothepersonalrepresentativeappointedbythecourt withinthelaterofeither(1)fourmonthsfromthedateoffirstissuanceoflett erstoageneralpersonalrepresentative,asdefinedinsection58(b)oftheCaliforniaProbateCode or(2)60daysfromthedateofmailingorpersonaldeliverytoyouofanoticeundersection9052oftheCaliforniaProbateCode.

OtherCaliforniastatutesandlegalauthoritymayaffectyourrightsasacreditor.Youmay wanttoconsultwithanattorneyknowledgeableinCalifornialaw.

YOUMAYEXAMINEthefilekeptbythecourt.Ifyouareapersoninterestedintheestate,youmayfilewiththecourtaRequestforSpecialNotice(formDE-154)ofthefilingof aninventoryandappraisalofestateassetsorofanypetitionoraccountasprovidedin ProbateCodesection1250.ARequestforSpecialNoticeformisavailablefromthecourt clerk.

AttorneyforPetitioner

ROBERTJ.SILVERMAN,ESQ.-SBN165517, R.SILVERMANLAWGROUP 1910OLYMPICBLVD.,SUITE330

WALNUTCREEKCA94596

Telephone(925)705-4474

BSC223645 7/16,7/17,7/23/23 CNS-3719942# THEDAILYREPUBLIC DR#00064683

Published:July16,17,23,2023

NOTICE TO CREDITORS OF BULK SALE (Secs.6104,6105U.C.C.) EscrowNo.23200567A

Noticeisherebygiventocreditorsofthe withinnamedsellerthatabulksaleis abouttobemadeoftheassetsdescribed below.

Thenamesandbusinessaddressesofthe sellerare: FairfieldMontessoriPreSchool,Patrick RaymondKrystekandLorraineKrystek, JeffAllenBaileyandVickiBailey,1101 UtahStreet,Fairfield,CA94533 ThelocationinCaliforniaofthechiefexecutiveoffice oftheselleris:Sameasabove Aslistedbytheseller,allotherbusiness namesandaddressesusedbytheseller withinthreeyearsbeforethedatesuchlist wassentordeliveredtothebuyerare:

None

Thenamesandbusinessaddressesofthe buyerare: DublinKidzSchools,LLC-MonikaVerma, 4458TarcentoLane,Dublin,CA94568 Theassetstobesoldaredescribedin generalas:goodwill,fixturesandequipmentandarelocatedat:1101UtahStreet, Fairfield,CA94533

Thebusinessnameusedbythesellerat thatlocationis:FairfieldMontessori PreSchool. TheanticipateddateofthebulksaleisAugust2,2023attheofficeofOrangeCoast TitleCompany,701UniversityAve.#110, Sacramento,CA95825. ThisbulksaleissubjecttoCaliforniaUniformCommercialCodeSection6106.2. Ifsosubject,thenameandaddressofthe personwithwhomclaimsmaybefiledis OrangeCoastTitleCompany,701UniversityAve.#110,Sacramento,CA95825, andthelastdateforfilingclaimsshallbe August1,2023,whichisthebusinessday beforethesaledatespecifiedabove.

Alcaraz

From Page B1

dropped serve of the entire Wimbledon fortnight.

Djokovic battled back to 2-2 in what was now a fierce duel for every point. He escaped a nasty looking slip unharmed en route to a tiebreak where he squandered a 3-0 lead, got a time violation warning and then wasted a set point at 6-5 by hitting an easy backhand into the net.

Alcaraz took full advantage and locked the sets with a stunning back-

oakland

From Page B1

hits off Joe Ryan during the inning.

Gelof, who is quickly establishing himself as one of the more exciting players on the team and went 2 for 4, singled and then stole second to get himself in scoring position.

A few minutes later, the second baseman scored his third run of the series.

After the bullpen surrendered the lead, Gelof

hand return winner as he ended Djokovic’s run of 15 straight successful tiebreaks at the majors since losing a decisive game against Enzo Couacaud in the second round of the Australian Open.

Alcaraz kept up the pressure to break in the opening game of the third set, saved break points to go 3-1 up and then won the epic fifth game for 4-1, on his seventh break point after 13 deuces when Djokovic netted a forehand.

The rest was a formality as Alcaraz went 2-1 sets up with another return winner.

Djokovic took a longer

cut Minnesota’s advantage to one run on an RBI bloop double that landed in between three defenders in right field.

The 23-year-old has a triple, two RBI doubles and two stolen bases in three games with the A’s.

“Zack did a great job of finding some holes today and in the past couple of days,” Sears said. “And Tyler, if you ask him about it he’s probably not real happy with how his at-bats have been, but he’s an exceptional hitter.”

The A’s had a chance

Weather

break than Alcarez and appeared somewhat recharged, saving two break points in the second game and then breaking himself for 3-2 when Alcaraz put a drop shot attempt into the net. He never looked back and forced a fifth set when Alcaraz double faulted.

Break points came and went for each player at the start of the decider before Alcaraz swung the momentum in his favor again to break for 2-1 with a backhand passing shot.

Djokovic smashed racquet against the net post in disgust to get a warning, sensing this was

to tie the game in the bottom of the ninth once Shea Langeliers doubled off the right field wall with one out.

Twins closer Jhoan Duran worked around the runner in scoring position and earned his 15th save of the season. Erceg (2-1) got the loss and reliever Jorge Lopez (3-2) earned the win as the Twins enjoyed their fourth sweep of the 2023.

Despite the young player’s best efforts, it took place in another close loss in a season full of them. Of the A’s league-leading

5-day forecast for Fairfield-Suisun City

the deciding moment. And indeed Alcarez did not falter and served out the match in the 10th game, wrapping up matters with a fierce forward Djokovic could only retrieve into the net.

“After the first set I thought ‘Carlos increase the level’, everyone will be disappointed,” Alcaraz said.

“I fall in love with grass right now, it’s amazing, I didn’t expect to play at this level in such a short period. I’ve played just four tournaments on grass and I’ve won Queens and I’ve won here. I’ve learnt really, really fast.”

70 defeats, 20 have been by the slimmest of margins. The A’s won’t have very long to regroup, with the Boston Red Sox (50-44) travelling into the East Bay for a three-game series starting on Monday.

“It’s about getting back in the groove, because you know the (All Star) break was a little weird and our bullpen guys had been really good the last month before the break,” Sears said. “But every time I look up, whoever is down there (in the bullpen), I feel confident in those guys.”

CALENDAR

Monday’s TV sports

Tuesday’s TV sports

• Boston vs. Oakland, NBCSCA, 6:40 p.m.

Giants

From Page B1

inning, Wood walked No. 9 hitter Jason Delay, ending a string of seven consecutive outs.

With the top of the order awaiting its third turn, Kapler pulled Wood in favor of Beck. As a starter, opposing hitters were hitting .194 (13 for 67) against Wood the first time through the order, as opposed to .292 (19 for 65) and .364 (4 for 11) the third time.

Beck retired Connor Joe on a popup on his first pitch to end the inning. He gave up a run in the sixth when Henry Davis doubled, stole third and came home on a ground out by Jared Triolo with the infield playing back and conceding the run.

Pittsburgh starter Osvaldo Bido was out in the third, in part because of a pair of walks and a hit-by-pitch and an outfield error in a three-run inning for the Giants.

J.D. Davis drove in the first run with a single to right, with a second run scoring when Pittsburgh

4:10 p.m.

outfielder Henry Davis manhandled the ball with LaMonte Wade Jr. racing home with a second run.

The Giants added a third run when Luis Matos grounded to the right side of the infield with the bases loaded before Bido was pulled in favor of left-hander Ryan Borucki. Borucki struck out Blake Sabol to end the inning.

After throwing 20 pitches in the first inning, Wood threw 25 more in the second. He gave up one run, but left the bases loaded.

The Pirates scored when Bryan Reynolds bounced a grounder up the middle toward shortstop Brandon Crawford. Conner Joe, who had reached first base on a walk, beat Crawford’s attempt to get a force play at second. That gave Reynolds a run-scoring single and Pittsburgh a 1-0 lead.

The Giants open a four-game series Monday against the Reds, surprise contenders in the N.L. Central, and announced the following starters: Logan Webb, Anthony DeSclafani, Ross Stripling and Alex Cobb.