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Official: House poised to pass domestic spending plan this week Tribune Content Agency
Robinson Kuntz/Daily Republic file (2018)
Preparing for the Festival of Trees, at Vacaville Ice Sports, Monday.
Festival of Trees to launch inaugural downtown
The House of Representatives will pass Democrats’ massive domestic spending package this week, National Economic Council Director Brian Deese predicted Sunday. “We are confident that Speaker Pelosi is going to bring it up and that it will pass this week. We will move forward to the next process and moving it to the Senate,” he toll CNN’s “State of the Union.” For months, Democrats have struggled
to pass President Joe Biden’s domestic agenda. Earlier this month, Congress passed a roughly $1 trillion infrastructure package. Now the focus is on legislation to provide universal preschool, fight climate change, invest in worker training and much more – with a hefty price tag of about $1.75 trillion. The White House initially envisioned $3.5 trillion in spending for the “Build Back Better Act,” known as See House, Page A7
Winter WonderWalk Daily Republic Staff drnews@dailyrepublic.net
Aaron Rosenblatt/Daily Republic file (2016)
A decorator places ornaments on a tree in preparation for the Festival of Trees at Vacaville Ice Sports, Nov. 25, 2016.
VACAVILLE — The Festival of Trees will host the inaugural Winter WonderWalk, offering a tour of city storefronts that have displays of themed holiday trees that are up for auction. Members of the public will get a chance to experience the beauty and magic of the Festival of Trees from 5 to 8 p.m. Dec. 2 while strolling downtown for the holiday season. Visitors can expect to hear the sounds of wandering carolers singing holiday tunes and the Epiphany Bell Ringers performing in Town Square. Homemade goodies from the Festival of Trees Holiday
Bake Shoppe will be available for sale. And Santa will be on hand to pose for photos at Downtown Journey. The Vacaville Festival of Trees is now showcasing fully decorated themed trees and wreaths in various storefronts throughout the city. More than 40 trees can be seen citywide with more than 20 trees on display in the windows of downtown businesses. For many, the Vacaville Festival of Trees celebration signals the start of the holiday season. Dozens of fully decorated large and small themed Christmas trees, many of which include gifts and gift cards, are donated by See Trees, Page A7
How does Covid-19 change the brain? This scientist is finding out Tribune Content Agency NEW YORK — In a room as cold as a refrigerator, Dr. Maura Boldrini bends over a plastic box filled with pale slices of human brain, each piece nestled in its own tiny, fluid-filled compartment. She gestures with purple-gloved fingers: Here are the folds of the cortex, where higher cognition takes place. There is the putamen, which helps our limbs move. Here is the emotion-pro-
cessing amygdala, with its telltale bumps. Each piece in this box came from a single brain – one whose owner died of Covid-19. There are dozens more containers just like it stacked in freezers in Boldrini’s lab at the New York State Psychiatric Institute. “Each of these boxes is one person,” she says in a lilting Italian accent. Each will play See Brain, Page A7
Kirk McKoy/Los Angles Times/TNS file
Dr. Maura Boldrini in her New York lab examining Covid-19 brain matter slides, May 18.
9-year-old boy dies a week after being trampled at Scott’s Astroworld festival Tribune Content Agency A 9-year-old boy who fell from his father’s shoulders and was trampled at Travis Scott’s Astroworld show died of his injuries Sunday, his family announced. Treston Blount had said Friday his son Ezra was on life support. On Sunday, the family told KTRK-TV the little
boy had died. The tragedy brought the death toll from the Nov. 5 concert to 10; Bharti Shahani died Nov. 10 and eight others were pronounced dead the night of the event. The devastated father of Ezra Blount had held onto hope until the end. “I could tell that he was damaged,” Blount
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told ABC 13 on Friday. “I’m not ready to lose my boy at all. We still got a bunch of living to do. . . . That’s my boy.” “The Blount family tonight is grieving the incomprehensible loss of their precious young son,” said civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who has filed nearly 100 lawsuits on behalf
of the Blounts and other bereaved families, in a statement to the Daily News. “This should not have been the outcome of taking their son to a concert, what should have been a joyful celebration. Ezra’s death is absolutely heartbreaking. We are committed to seeking answers and
WEATHER 66 | 52 Areas of dense fog, then cloudy. Forecast on B8.
See Festival, Page A7
Yuri Gripas/Abaca Press/TNS file
U.S. National Economic Council Director Brian Deese speaks at a press briefing at the White House, April 26.
Yellen says quashing Covid key to lowering this inflation Tribune Content Agency WASHINGTON — Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said controlling the Covid-19 virus in the U.S. is the key to easing inflation. “It’s important to realize that the cause of this inflation is the pandemic,” Yellen said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday. yellen “If we want to get inflation down, I think continuing to make progress against the pandemic is the most important thing we can do,” she said. Yellen and White House economic adviser Brian Deese fanned out on the Sunday morning talk shows to face repeated questions about
inflation, a growing political risk for President Joe Biden as his poll numbers slip and Democrats wrangle over his economic agenda. Biden’s overall approval rating fell to 41%, compared with 50% in June and 44% in September, in the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll. It suggests that about half of Americans overall, as well as political independents, blame Biden for inflation that accelerated to a 6.2% clip in the 12 months through October. Yellen repeated that she expects inflation to decline by the second half of 2022. “When labor supply See Yellen, Page A7
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