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DAILYREPUBLIC.COM | Well said. Well read.
GOP grapples with future in Congress after Trump verdict Los Angeles Times
Jean Taylor Hamilton/Courtesy photo
Jean Taylor Hamilton hopes to be in her new home in Texas by the end of the month.
Change of scenery Family among the 15% of Fairfield residents who moved in 1-year span Amy Maginnis-Honey
AMAGINNIS@DAILYREPUBLIC.NET
Jean Taylor Hamilton/Courtesy photo
Jean Taylor Hamilton is shown during a Matt Garcia Foundation cleanup in downtown Fairfield.
FAIRFIELD — A new study from Construction Coverage that looks at the most transient American cities found that 15.4% of Fairfield residents – 17,764 people – moved in a one-year span. Some stayed within the county and some within the state. Others joined the exodus from the Golden State as 135,600 more people left California than moved here in 2020. There are a variety of reasons people leave California, including surging home prices, to be near family and more recently, the Covid-19 pandemic. Among them is longtime Suisun City and Fairfield resident Jean Taylor Hamilton, who has called Fairfield and Suisun City home since July 1958. She entered the Job Corps after high school. She returned and spent a few years in Vallejo with her late husband, Joe Hamilton, who taught many years at Solano Community College. Hamilton’s mother died when Hamilton was 24. Her husband died 22 years later and she was left with a 10-year-old son to raise alone.
WASHINGTON — The dramatic shift in tone from Senate Republicans between two impeachment trials of former President Donald Trump, just a year apart, reveals a party that has grown weary of defending its leader but TRUMP lacks the fortitude to sever ties, with GOP lawmakers openly grappling this weekend with the difficult question of
how to move forward after such a divisive trial. In the wake of Trump’s acquittal Saturday, Republicans are divided on the power Trump will – and should – command in the Republican Party, including in the 2024 presidential election. Seven Republicans voted for conviction, a number so large that the vote will go down as the most bipartisan See Future, Page A7
By the numbers • 135,600 more people left California than moved here in 2020. • 15.4% of Fairfield residents – 17,764 people – moved in a one-year span. • 12.9% of Vallejo residents – 15,566 people – moved in a one-year span. Source: Construction Coverage
Hamilton and her three grandchildren, whom she took in in 2010, lived for almost eight years in a Habitat for Humanity home they helped to build. Hamilton a few years ago took in her daughter, who became disabled. The daughter is also the mother of the grandchildren. Two key factors influenced Hamilton’s decision to move last month to Hawkins, Texas. The 71-year-old needed to be close to family so she could eventually pass the baton to another family member. “I won’t be leaving the burden of her continued See Change, Page A7
Erin Hooley/Chicago Tribune/TNS
A new study suggests a potential relationship between greater prevalence of marijuana dispensaries and fewer recorded opioid fatalities.
UC-Davis study: Pot could curb opioid death toll Tribune Content Agency SACRAMENTO — Counties with greater numbers of cannabis dispensaries saw fewer opioid-related deaths, according to a study recently published by the University of California, Davis. Study co-author Greta
Hsu, a UC Davis professor of management, was careful to point out that correlation was not causality, and that further study of the subject is needed. “We’re trying to get as precise as we can, but with this kind of data See Study, Page A7
Supermarket workers feel unrecognized over virus Los Angeles Times LOS ANGELES — A year ago this month, during the early days of the pandemic, Susan Hernandez, a cashier at Food 4 Less in North Hollywood, found herself in a sea of panic-buying shoppers. The coronavirus hadn’t claimed any lives yet in Southern California, but the scenes in stores gave a certain dawnof-the-apocalypse movie, everyone-out-for-themselves vibe. “People were fighting over water,” Hernandez recalled. “Our managers had to break up fights.” Eventually, a sense of relative calm descended as the direst projections didn’t seem to come to pass. Then came the fall
surge, when Los Angeles County became the latest American epicenter of the pandemic. Working in a supermarket once again became a crucible of stress, but not because of panicked shoppers. Now, it was the sheer amount of infection everywhere. “Is today the day I ... get the virus?” Hernandez, 50, would often ask herself. In November, Hernandez tested positive for the virus. She infected her husband and two children. Had her father, who was battling cancer, not been out of town, he might have gotten ill too, she said. Few essential workers have been hit harder by the Covid-19 pandemic than grocery
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store workers. These stores never closed, serving as a lifeline to communities even as much of the economy was on lockdown. The fall and winter surge was devastating, with thousands of workers in Southern California getting the coronavirus. Cases are now dropping, but many workers remain anxious and alone. Essential workers are still struggling to get the Covid-19 vaccine, which is in short supply. Officials have prioritized medical workers and those 65 and older, who have the highest risk of death. That leaves those working at supermarkets still unsure when they will get inoculated. See Workers, Page A7
Christina House/Los Angeles Times/TNS file photo
Food 4 Less workers protest outside the store in Long Beach, Feb. 3. The group had condemned the parent company’s actions to close two locations because of the city’s emergency ordinance to temporarily pay workers an extra $4 per hour in “hazard” wages.
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