Daily Republic: Dec. 25, 2022

Power outages, flight delays as US storm leaves trail of chaos

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Dangerously cold temperatures settled over a wide swath of the U.S. and Canada on Saturday as a massive winter storm upended road and air travel at the start of the Christmas holiday and left millions without power or facing rolling blackouts.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, who has mobilized the National Guard to Erie County, said Saturday the storm “may go down as one of the worst in history.” Buffalo Niagara International Airport is closed at least through Monday morning, she told a news conference.

In New York City, Hochul toured flooded areas of the Rockaways in Queens and said she has asked the federal government to

declare a disaster area.

Temperatures will be 20 to 30 degrees Fahrenheit below normal across much of the central and eastern U.S., the National Weather Service said, and snow totals in parts of the Midwest have reached or are almost at record levels. Buffalo probably set a record with 77 inches of snowfall in part of the city from Thursday night until Saturday morning.

Thousands of flights were canceled or delayed, according to FlightAware, and road travel has been treacherous, forcing some to cancel Christmas plans.

It’s just the latest example of extreme weather brought on by climate change wreaking havoc on power grids, halting travel and

Storm,

SuSAn HilAnd SHILAND@DAILYREPUBLIC.NET

VACAVILLE — A small army of volunteers descended on the Vacaville Veterans Hall to help make Christmas Eve memorable for veterans and families.

About 50 people showed up before 10 a.m. Within an hour, that number surged to about 120. That is still a little less than in past years but a good turnout for a cold morning.

“We had 80 people signup for today,” said Jeff Jewell, organizer. “I guess a bunch of people just walked in.”

The tradition of serving veterans, veterans’ families, as well as

Eve bright

local families and some homeless, began in 1995 when they served the meal on Christmas Eve rather than Christmas Day.

In years past the hall has hosted the meal inside but due to the pandemic that has stopped.

“We might go back and do it again,” said Jewell. “But we serve more people doing the deliveries.”

Volunteer drivers took the meals out into the community. The bags included plastic dinner boxes, large and small, were filled with all the fixings for a traditional Christmas meal, including dessert.

This year they had a ton of children show up to volunteer as well as grownups.

Ukraine says 10 killed, 55 injured in shelling of Kherson

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KYIV, Ukraine — Ten people were killed and 55 others were injured in Russian shelling of the center of the Ukrainian city of Kherson, military governor Yaroslav Yanushevych told Ukrainian television on Saturday evening.

Russian forces were shooting from other parts of the wider Kherson region, Ukraine said.

Ukrainian troops took back the city of Kherson in the autumn after Moscow’s forces withdrew. But Russia controls most of the region, and it is one of four regions that Moscow annexed in

contravention of international law.

Yanushevych’s announcement came after the deputy head of the presidential office, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, said seven people had died and 58 were wounded, of whom 18 suffered serious injuries.

Tymoshenko posted photos of apparently lifeless people in the center of the city on his Telegram news service channel.

“The Russians have again committed terror and shelled the city center,” Tymoshenko said. “People have died, buildings have

SuSAn HilAnd SHILAND@DAILYREPUBLIC.NET

VACAVILLE — Candy Cane Lane was illuminated with thousands of lights this past month.

Cars rolled slowly down the lane, pausing to look at the homes decorated top to bottom. The road turned into Lollipop Lane with even more houses shining in the night and walkers enjoying an evening stroll.

Neither of these roads with fairytale-like names will be found on official maps. Instead

they will be found under Arlene Drive and Shady Glen Avenue, officially.

This month is one of Roulou Avila’s favorites. She and her husband, Tony, are the original owners of one of the houses decorated along Candy Cane Lane.

They moved into the neighborhood in 1988, bringing their decorations from the old house. Each year they have brought in more decorations, replacing worn-out ornaments and lights with new ones. They are happy

“It is great to see them here. They need to be here to see that Christmas isn’t just about them but about helping others,” said Jewell.

See Veteran, Page A10

Susan Hiland/Daily Republic

About 120 volunteers came out for the annual Vacaville Veterans Hall Christmas Eve meal at the Veterans Hall

in Vacaville, Saturday. This year’s meals were delivered and not served at the hall.

Susan Hiland/Daily Republic

Candy Cane Lane decorated for the holidays again this year in Vacaville.

Susan Hiland/Daily Republic

About 50 families received toys for the Vacaville Veteran’s Hall Christmas Dinner, Saturday.

Matthew Hatcher/Getty Images/TNS

Holiday travelers crowd the Detroit Wayne County Metro Airport, in Detroit, Saturday.

Celebrating Christmas, the longest day of the year

Christmas can be the most exciting day of the year. It can be the best day of the year. It can be a seemingly endless day.

It is undoubtedly the longest day of the year, despite the fact that the “experts” say June 21 is technically the longest day, if you equate “day” and “daylight” (and Dec. 21 is the shortest day).

Those “experts” apparently never had kids.

Because I remember. In fact, I still have a datebook from when the Stanhope family included me, Mrs. Brad and two elementary-school-age boys. That document proves that Christmas is the longest day of the year. An excerpt:

The WashingTon PosT

Yvonne Faulkner-Grant and her husband, David Grant, noticed something unusual about their dog Scruff last year while they were out walking in their town of Nuneaton in central England.

The 13-year-old border collie had always enjoyed fetching sticks, but the Grants stopped throwing them after a veterinarian said they might leave cuts inside Scruff’s mouth, Yvonne said.

Border collies are natural working dogs and love to play fetch, she said, so she and David were happy when Scruff started picking up discarded plastic bottles in fields, parks and streets around town.

“He would see a bottle that somebody had tossed out, and he’d go pick it up, play with it, then drop it and leave it,” Yvonne said.

“We’d praise him and he’d go look for another one, but we started to feel bad about leaving the bottles,” David added. “Even though they weren’t ours to begin with, we thought of it as littering.”

He and Yvonne developed a plan: They would bring a cloth sack along on their twice-daily walks so they could collect and recycle all of the bottles Scruff picked up.

It was close to the new year, so the Grants also thought it would be fun to document all of the littered plastic water, soda and juice bottles that Scruff found in 2022.

They now post about his cleanup adventures once a month on David’s Facebook page under the hashtag #scruffsbottlepatrol.

In January, the first month when they kept track, Scruff found 41 bottles, they said. When David snapped a photo

6 a.m.: Wow! Christmas morning is great. Both boys got up early and were excited. Mrs. Brad and I drank coffee and enjoyed watching the kids open gifts. Scooters are the big item this year. It will be great!

7:30 a.m.: Coffee is wearing off and the boys are already fighting. Breakfast is done and the house is a mess. Now I need to figure out how to use an electronic gadget Mrs. Brad got me.

9 a.m.: Mrs. Brad and I completed our traditional Christmas walk with Brandy, our dog, leaving the boys at home. It was peaceful. But how is it only 9?

10:45 a.m.: Exhausted. I thought we might start prepar-

ing dinner, then realized it’s more than an hour until lunch. I thought I had the electronic gadget figured out, but no. I guess it needs batteries. Should we take the tree down? Maybe a nap, instead.

Noon: Fell asleep on the couch, then ate because we’ve been up for 15 or 20 hours (I checked my watch. We’ve only been up six hours. How?). We turned on an NBA game, but it’s dull. How long until dinner?

1:15 p.m.: The kids are outside and I’m hungry. Dinner is still four hours off? Why is there nothing on TV? And I think I lost a key part for that electronic gadget.

2:45 p.m.: This morning seems like it was days ago. I tried to take a nap, then realized I’d taken one this morning. Will

night ever get here?

4:30 p.m.: We ate dinner, since we’ve been up for hours and hours (ignore the fact that Mrs. Brad and I regularly get up at 6 a.m.). Fortunately, it’s getting dark, so finally it will be bedtime soon.

6 p.m.: I’m hungry again, because of the early dinner. So I’ll have some leftovers before I go to bed . . . what? It’s only 6 p.m.?

8 p.m.: Exhausted. It feels like months since we got up, even though it’s only been 14 hours. Fourteen hours of sitting around, watching the clock and waiting for the next meal. And trying to get my electronic gadget to work. I still think it may need batteries.

9 p.m.: We usually go to bed after 10 p.m., but we’re

exhausted. And bored. How many meals can you eat in one day? How many card games can you play? We’re headed off for rest.

11 p.m.: Can’t sleep. The morning nap and all the meals must have affected me. Well, at least the kids had fun on Christmas. Wait. That was today?

How is that possible?

11:45 p.m.: I just fell asleep when I heard a chirping noise. After stumbling around, I realized it’s the electronic device. I have no idea how to turn it off, so I put it in the car in the garage. Now I’m awake again.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

and shared it on Facebook, friends and neighbors chimed in with praises of “Good boy!” and “Well done, Scruff!”

“Good work, Scruff . . . you deserve a treat [and] your owner deserves a pint,” one follower commented.

“I just think this is absolutely brilliant. Good lad, Scruff,” wrote another.

One man nicknamed the pooch “Scruffy the Eco Warrior,” and that was soon shortened to “Eco Dog,” Yvonne said.

“We were all amazed at how many bottles he would find - and we were also shocked at how many people were tossing them on the ground,” she said. “Everyone loved that Scruff was helping to clean up our town.”

In February, Scruff upped his game and found 61 plastic bottles, followed in March by 110 bottles and one plastic cup. In August, he found a whopping 143 bottles, David said.

“We think it was related to kids being out of school, but that’s no excuse for littering,” he said. “We’re glad that Scruff enjoys picking them up and can help set an example of how to care for the planet.”

He and Yvonne store the bottles in their backyard and will add them up to get a grand tally in early January before recycling them, he said.

“There are definitely more than 1,000 right now,” David said. “There are very few days when Scruff doesn’t find one.”

“Finding plastic bottles is his focus and passion,” added Yvonne, 47. “He’s the kind of dog that needs command, and he feels like he’s pleasing us when he drops another plastic bottle at our feet.”

Scruff has been part of their family since 2009 when she brought

him home as a puppy after picking him up at a farm in Wales, she said.

“He’s always been a really smart and playful dog who loves long walks and games of fetch,” Yvonne noted. “It could be pelting rain and he doesn’t bat an eyelid. He loves to be outdoors.”

When she and David, 48, met about three years ago at a running club (they recently married in September), he also fell in love with Scruff, she said.

“Scruff is an older dog, but he has a lot of energy and is always ready to play,” she said. “Both of us have always enjoyed two long walks with him, morning and night.”

Yvonne works as a supervisor for a food distribution company while David works in a factory that manufactures aerospace products, he said.

“You get home and you’re tired and Scruff will come up and put a ball in your lap,” David said. “We probably walk five miles a day with him, through the woods and fields near where we live. It’s always a fun adventure to go out with him.”

When Scruff finds a bottle, he will race over and sit by it until he is given permission to pick it up, he said.

“And if it’s across the road, he won’t cross unless we tell him to,” David said.

“He’s a brilliant dog.”

Another dog in London made headlines in October for collecting 6,000 stray golf balls, but the Grants said Scruff isn’t worried that other canines are out to steal his limelight in the United Kingdom now that he’s been featured by the BBC.

“He hasn’t let the attention go to his head,” Yvonne said. “Lots of people tell us he doesn’t look his age.”

“He really is a hero dog,” David added, noting that it will be a fun surprise to add up all of Scruff’s plastic bottles for the year.

He and Yvonne plan to continue storing bottles for Scruff in the yard throughout 2023, but this time they’ll recycle them at the end of each month, he said.

“Let’s just say he collected far more bottles this year than we ever imagined he would,” David said.

Brad Stanhope Like I was sayin’

David Grant courtesy photo Scruff with his haul of 41 plastic bottles in January 2022.

Yvonne Faulkner-Grant courtesy photo Yvonne Faulkner-Grant enjoys an affectionate moment with Scruff in August 2022.

Grande Circle toy giveaway brings smiles and joy Christmas Eve

SuSan Hiland SHILAND@DAILYREPUBLIC.NET

FAIRFIELD — Mt.

Calvary Baptist Church took over the cul-de-sac at Grande Circle on Christmas Eve to bring a little joy to residents with a toy giveaway.

A large truck filled with toys and more were unloaded by about 15 volunteers.

For 15 years the church has been bringing smiles to children and adults for the Christmas season with this event.

“We didn’t do it during the pandemic,” said Tony Adams, director of evangelism and missions for the church. “And people were asking where we went.”

It is a labor of love for the church and the volunteers to help those who may not have a lot of presents beneath the tree.

“It has been a hard year for some,” he said.

A second truck came with bikes and more holiday goodies later in the day.

“We are going to pray with the community and bless them,” Adams said.

He expected by 1 p.m. to see everything exhausted and gone.

A crowd grew as people waited for the event to start at 10 a.m.

This year they had air fryers, bean bags, heaters, and even small synthetic Christmas trees. They even sent out 91 gift cards to children of incarcerated parents for Target and Walmart through their Angel Tree Program.

“Some people that can’t even afford to buy a heater,” Adams said.

Joyce Northington has been a resident of Grande

Circle for 12 years. She brought her service dog, Jake, to wait for one of the Christmas trees. This year is going to be a small Christmas. She lost her job back in February and things have been tight.

With 13 grandchildren and children spread out and working, she has done simple things to make the Christmas Day special.

“I got little stockings and filled them with oranges and apples,” she said. “I’m going to grab that small tree,” she said pointing to the box.

She plans on making a ham with beans and homemade potato salad for the meal.

“I’m not sure how many will come because my daughters have to work, but it will be a nice relaxing day,” she said.

Community Elevate toy giveaway grows in second year

SuSan Hiland SHILAND@DAILYREPUBLIC.NET

SUISUN CITY — The nonprofit Community Elevate hosted its second toy giveaway of the season at Crystal Middle School, bringing tons of eager children out on a magical Christmas Eve.

Kaiya Butcher, the executive pastor for Build-

ing Christian Fellowship, a non-denominational church in Suisun City, was happy to see the various organizations come together to help make the day special for families in the community.

Community Elevate is a non-profit organization that works to pair residents and the government of Suisun City to improve the

quality of life of its citizens.

“This is about sharing hope. People need hope now more than ever,” she said.

The line to enter the Crystal gymnasium was long and down the sidewalk with hundreds showing up for toys, bikes, a little hot cocoa and donuts.

The donuts and cocoa ran out very quickly. They

handed out 150 donuts first thing in the morning.

“Community Elevate and the church is constantly thinking of new ways to bring hope,” she said. “Doing things like this is a more personal way to know the needs of the residents.”

Organizer Ginny Davis for Community Elevate noted that more came out than last year.

“We had 50 bikes, but they are nearly gone,” she

said pointing to the group of bikes left. “Everyone is always super excited about today.”

Building Christian Fellowship has been doing a toy giveaway for nearly 10 years, which is long before Community Elevate, and they are happy to continue the tradition as part of a larger organization.

Kids and families not only received toys or bikes but also a chance to get

pictures with Mr. and Mrs. Santa Claus.

Christina Ross, from Suisun City, enjoyed watching her son Makoni Bershell, 4, get a bike along with her niece Alayah Gibbs, 11.

“I am really excited about Christmas,” said Gibbs.

Ross was looking forward to presents.

“It isn’t going to be too much this year, but fun with the family,” she said.

Amazon launches Prime Air drone delivery service in California

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Amazon has begun using drones to deliver packages, with a small town in the Central Valley representing one of the first two locations covered by the e-commerce giant’s new Prime Air homedelivery service.

Lockeford, a town of about 3,600 people in San Joaquin County that is about 10 miles from Stockton, as well as College Station, Texas, are the first two locales being served by Prime Air.

Amazon earlier this year unveiled plans to roll out Prime Air service to those two locations before the end of 2022. The company did not specify a launch date at that time, but an Amazon spokesperson on Friday said Prime Air has officially started delivering to customers.

“Our aim is to safely introduce our drones to the skies,” Natalie Banke, an Amazon Air spokesperson, said Friday in an emailed statement to The Sacramento Bee. “We are starting in these communities and will gradually expand deliveries to more

customers over time.”

The Prime Air drones, which weigh about 85 pounds, are affixed in a hexagonal frame and fly autonomously, can carry packages up to 5 pounds. The Lockeford drones will serve a roughly onesquare-mile zone.

Home delivery drones face logistical challenges

including navigation obstacles such as trees and power lines. Amazon secured authorization for its drones with the Federal Aviation Administration and local officials in Lockeford.

Planning in Lockeford began this July, The Modesto Bee previously reported.

Susan Hiland/Daily Republic

Sophia Anguino, 4. of Suisun City got her first bike at the second annual Community Elevate Christmas Toy Giveaway at Crystal Middle School in Suisun City, Saturday.

Susan Hiland/Daily Republic Mt. Calvary Baptist Church volunteers came out early Christmas Eve to help distribute toys and other goodies for the annual Christmas Toy Giveaway on Grande Circle, Saturday.

Obituaries

David L. Beyer

Feb. 24, 1949 — Dec. 10, 2022

David Lee Beyer, age 73, passed away on Dec. 10, 2022. Dave was born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, one of seven children to Woodrow and Mabel (Roseland) Beyer. He resided in Fairfield, California, since the age of 11.

After high school Dave joined the U.S. Navy, 19691971, where he served two tours in Vietnam, then worked in civil service at Travis AFB for 30 years until he retired.

Dave enjoyed fishing, camping, golf and his grandchildren. In karate, he won the 1967 CA State Championship in white belt, 1968 all Hawaii Champion, brown belt, and 1968 World Champion, brown belt, and earned a black belt.

Dave will be missed by his wife of 47 years, Elaine (Breen) Beyer; son, Thomas Beyer; daughter, Catherine Beyer; and four grandchildren, Shane Lipary, Mackenzie Beyer, Skye Beyer and Jayden Naples; David’s brother, Donald Beyer; and sisters, Milly Treherne and Deanna Olson.

David will be interred at 1 p.m. Monday, April 3, 2023, at the Sacramento Valley National Cemetery. A celebration of life will follow at the Suisun Veterans Memorial Building, 427 Main St., Suisun City, California.

Arrangements under the care of BryanBraker Funeral Home, 707-425-4697.

Pervis Lamoine Leewright

May 31, 1938 — Nov. 23, 2022

We are saddened to announce the passing of Mr. Pervis Lamoine Leewright. Pervis was born at home to William Purvis Leewright and Etta Marie Leewright in Sulfur Springs, Texas, in 1938. He left us on Nov. 23, 2022, passing comfortably in his sleep.

Pervis was born the fourth of five children. He is survived by his younger sister, Sue; son, David; grandchildren, Kristen and Kevin; and his great-grandson, Keith, now 16 years old.

The Leewright family moved from Texas to San Diego, California, in 1942 and on to Suisun Valley in 1946. Pervis attended Armijo High School, graduating in 1956 and served the next two years in Korea in the U.S. Army.

After returning home to Fairfield, California, in 1958, Pervis met and married Donna Lewis of Vacaville.

Pervis spent most of his working career as a foreman in the packaging department of Basic Vegetable in Vacaville. Pervis also served as a Vacaville police reserve officer after graduating Solano College with an AA

degree in Criminal Justice.

As a young man, he enjoyed hunting, fishing and the great outdoors. In later years, he spent most of his time motorcycling with friends and family, riding to Florida in 2001 and Sturgis in 2003. Pervis was also very active with his local clubs, serving as Sergeant-atArms in the Vacaville Moose Lodge for many years. He was also an active member of Veterans of Foreign Wars, Iron Steads of Vacaville, and ABATE.

His laughter and love of life will be greatly missed.

Viewing will be held from 9 to 11 a.m., with funeral service at 11 a.m. Wednesday, Dec. 28, 2022, at Bryan-Braker Funeral Home, 1850 W. Texas St. Fairfield. Graveside service will be at 12:30 p.m. at the Suisun Fairfield Cemetery, 1707 Union Ave., Fairfield, California.

In lieu of flowers, please make a donation to the Ronald McDonald House in Sacramento.

Arrangements under the care of BryanBraker Funeral Home, 707-425-4697.

Gene Provencher was born in Lawrence, Massachusetts, to Eugene and Lorraine, growing up alongside four sisters.

He moved to Crockett, California, at a young age where he met the love of his life, Pat, in 1956 when she was just 10 years old. He then joined the Air Force, quickly returning when she turned 18 and marrying her in 1964. Their first son, Michael, was born in 1965, followed by Dennis in 1972.

Other than Pat, his great loves were his family, his service to the U.S. Air Force, the Oakland Raiders and his cars. He made his career by driving fuel tankers around the Bay Area.

He is survived by his loving family, wife of 58 years and best friend of

66 years, Pat; sons, Michael (Laura), and Dennis (Tanya); he was very proud of his four amazing grandchildren, Kelsey Barnett (Garrick), Haley, Mitchell, Matthew Provencher; and great-grandchildren, Amy Jo and Jocelyn Jolene Barnett; as well as nephew and niece, Timothy Trainer and Leslie Hoefert; sister, Denise Provencher; brother-in-law, Ron Trainer; and an extensive network of extended family members and friends.

Graveside service will be held at noon Monday, Jan. 9, 2023, at the Sacramento Valley National Cemetery, 5810 Midway Road, Dixon, California.

In lieu of flowers, please donate to a veteran’s organization in Gene’s name.

Firefighters, winery donations will add cancer diagnosis tool to NorthBay

DAily r epubliC STAff

DRNEWS@DAILYREPUBLIC.NET

VACAVILLE — Christmas came a little early to the NorthBay Health Cancer Center when a red fire engine recently pulled up to the curb filled with good tidings and a check for nearly $8,000 raised by the Vacaville Firefighter Association’s Passionately Pink for a Cure fundraiser.

Minutes later, Beth Layne, of Layne Family Wineries, also of Vacaville, donated a check for $7,000, with $3,000 from money raised during an October fundraiser, and $4,000 donated by Layne and her husband, Rob.

The donations were delivered on Dec. 20.

that the Cancer Center decided to collaborate with the ENT team in the purchase, knowing it would speed up diagnosis and treatment for patients who previously had to head to the hospital for diagnostic procedures.

“This will enable us to accomplish biopsies and procedures much more quickly, and will improve cancer care for our patients,” Long said. “It makes quite a difference, and we greatly appreciate the donations.”

The Layne Family Winery has been offering a special rosé in October for several years, donating the proceeds to the Cancer Center.

Marcia Ellen Moore was born in San Francisco, California, to Kenneth and Everly Moore.

Marcia proudly joined the Marine Corps in Jacksonville, Florida, on Sept. 11, 1972.

Marcia was a licensed bail bonds agent in Sacramento for over 10 years. She also obtained her Licensed Vocational Nurse degree.

She is survived by her daughter, Jamie (Andrew) Paulsen; sisters, Teri (Fernando) Castro, Patricia Jetter; brothers, Larry (Jo Ann) Wilkey, Robert (Lisa) Wilkey; and numerous nieces and nephews.

She is preceded in death by her father, mother; and daughters, Irene Bashline and Johnnie Mae.

Service will be held at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 27, 2022, at the Sacramento Valley National Cemetery, 5810 Midway Road, Dixon. Celebration of life will follow at Fraternal Order of Eagles, 77 Marina Center Blvd., Suisun City, California.

In lieu of flowers, please make a donation to the Fraternal Order of Eagles Cancer Fund, 77 Marina Center Blvd., Suisun City, CA 94585.

Those donations, added to other Cancer Center donations, will enable NorthBay Health to purchase a diagnostic ultrasound device that will be used by the organization’s Ears, Nose & Throat specialist, Dr. Cassandra Puccinelli, to quickly diagnose and treat cancers of the neck and thyroid, Paul McGinty, president of the NorthBay Health Foundation, said in a statement.

“It’s exciting, because this money will start to make an impact immediately in the lives of people who live in Solano County,” McGinty said.

Oncology specialist, Dr. James Long, explained

The Vacaville Firefighters Association started its Passionately Pink fundraiser in 2011, pausing only for the pandemic. This year it returned to Pietro’s No. 1, where firefighters dressed in special pink T-shirts and served pizza and pasta to customers on Oct. 27.

“It’s really special to see how the community turns out to support us in our fundraising effort, and now we have the opportunity to show them how their donations are at work,” said Frank Lee, firefighter and fundraising coordinator. “Soon those donations will be making a difference in the lives of cancer patients.”

Party at Lake Tahoe ski resort linked to

possible Covid-19 outbreak, officials say

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A recent anniversary party celebrating a popular Tahoe-area ski resort may have spawned a Covid-19 outbreak, local health officials said this week.

Kirkwood Mountain Resort, south of Lake Tahoe, hosted a 50th anniversary celebration last Saturday at its lodge with about 200 people in attendance.

The world lost a beautiful soul when Michael Travis Barrick, 69, passed away on Dec. 11, 2022, with close family members by his side. Born April 25, 1953, in Fairfield, California, to Travis and Norma Barrick. He attended schools throughout Solano County and was in the first class of Fairfield High.

He leaves behind his best friend and sister, Phillis Bednarz (Larry); nieces, Lori Havel (Kobi) and Wendy Garner (Denny and son, Cory); and numerous extended family members and friends who loved him dearly.

Preceded in death by both parents and several aunts and uncles.

Mike’s life was filled with adventure, traveling the world as a flight attendant for over 20 years. He began working with Flying Tigers Airlines in 1975, making and maintaining lifelong friendships, and later flying with Northwest Airlines until his retirement. At this time, he took over caring for his mother and the family home that his parents built. He then found a love for ocean cruises and cocktails, taking at least 25 trips accompanied by his mother, then several more with his sister and brother-in-law.

Mike never ran out of hilarious travel tales and shared them often. As the last of the Barrick line, Mike was the backbone of the

family and felt it was important to stay in touch with all of the living relatives over the years.

Known as ‘Uncle Mike’ to his close friends and family, he’ll be remembered for his sarcastic wit, colorful Hawaiian shirts, sweet tooth and love of cooking.

Mike was kind, generous, and always at the ready to help others out.

In recent years, ‘Uncle Mike’ was involved with Solano County’s LGBT community, and thoroughly enjoyed volunteering for the Pride celebrations and attending the local potlucks.

Our family is greatly appreciative for friend and doctor, David Danzeisen, MD, and the thoughtful and caring medical staff at Kaiser Vacaville for the support they offered all of us throughout Mike’s final days.

Per Mike’s wishes, there will be no ceremony and his ashes will be buried alongside his parents. His family will hold a celebration of life after the holidays.

To honor Mike, in lieu of flowers, we ask for each of you to spend quality time with your family and pay it forward to someone in need.

Condolences can be shared on Mike’s Facebook account or privately emailed to Lori Havel, rbc124@gmail. com.

The Alpine County health office in a Thursday news release said it has been notified of “several persons with new onset of Covid illness that attended the event.”

A more specific estimate of virus cases linked to the event was not immediately available. It was not clear whether any of

those infected required hospitalization. The news release referred to the incident as a “probable Covid outbreak.”

County health officials

wrote that most attendees of the semicentennial anniversary party were “old timers,” and urged those who attended to get tested for Covid-19. The health

office also encouraged those at higher risk for severe Covid-19 – including adults over the age of 50, people who are unvaccinated and those with existing health conditions –antiviral treatments such as Paxlovid.

Alpine County is California’s least populous county at just over 1,200 residents. State health data show no recent Covid-19 activity in the county, but party attendees likely included residents of other counties.

Local and state health officials continue to urge caution, as Covid-19 transmission tends to increase this time of year due to end-of-year holiday gatherings, associated travel and colder weather driving people to congregate indoors.

Macy’s workers in SF do holiday strike

bloomberg

Macy’s Inc. workers at a flagship location in San Francisco’s Union Square began a two-day strike on Friday, walking out on some of the most crucial holiday shopping days of the year.

Macy’s said in a statement that “our top priority is to ensure the safety of our colleagues and customers,” adding that the store location will remain open. The company didn’t comment on how the store will be staffed or whether opening hours will shift.

Organizers say the strike involves 400 employees, and that 93% of workers voted for the work stoppage. The strike comes after workers overwhelmingly rejected a proposed contract from Macy’s on Thursday.

The workers, who are represented by United Food & Commercial Workers Local 5, had been looking to get higher

wages, broader access to health care benefits and better safety measures, according to Jim Araby, the union’s director of strategic campaigns.

“Nobody wants to go on strike at Christmas time but after six months of management stalling and refusal to make an offer that recognizes the hard

work that we do to make the company profitable and successful, we don’t have much choice,” said Chelsea Thomas, a Macy’s employee and member of the bargaining committee, in a statement. “The outcome of our struggle will ultimately impact the workers and the customer experience at our

store and at Macy’s stores throughout California.”

Strikers asked that customers boycott the San Francisco store as well as other Bay Area locations.

Marcia Ellen Moore June 6, 1952 — Nov. 25, 2022

Michael Travis Barrick April 25, 1953 — Dec. 11, 2022

Eugene H. Provencher Aug. 28, 1942 — Dec. 11, 2022

U.S. NAVY VETERAN

U.S. ARMY VETERAN

MARINE CORPS VETERAN

U.S. AIR FORCE VETERAN

Randy Pench/Sacramento Bee file

A skier takes to the slopes at Kirkwood Mountain Resort, December 2017.

Electric bus, Mare Island restoration, gun removal initiative get federal dollars

Todd R. H ansen THANSEN@DAILYREPUBLIC.NET

FAIRFIELD — A day after U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla announced $4.5 million in omnibus funds for Solano County projects, Rep. Mike Thompson announced an additional $4.04 million for local projects.

The largest share is $2 million to the SolTrans 100 Percent Battery Elec tric Commuter Coaches Project. The funds go toward the purchase of four electric buses.

“Working with local leaders to identify proj ects that will help our community is one of my top priorities every year,” Thompson, D-St. Helena, said in a statement released on Friday.

“I am proud that three vital projects in Solano County were included in the government funding bill passed (by the House of Representatives on Friday). These projects will help reduce community’s greenhouse gas emissions, preserve historic buildings on Mare Island, revitalize our local economy, and help law enforcement keep our community safe,” he added.

An additional $1.219 million is going to the Mare Island Preservation and Restoration Project and $830,000 for the Vallejo Gun Violence Prevention Initiative.

Vallejo and Mare Island are actually part of Thompson’s former district, which is part of Rep. John Garamendi’s redrawn 8th District. Thompson now represents the north end of Solano in the newly drawn 4th District.

The Senate passed the $1.7 trillion omnibus appropriation package on Thursday. It now goes to President Joe Biden for consideration.

The Mare Island funds are part of a preservation and restoration project to help restore the Admiral’s Mansion and St. Peter’s Chapel, both landmarks at the former Mare Island Naval Shipyard.

The Vallejo Gun Violence Prevention Initiative, part of the Police Depart-

ment, provides “resources and strategies to get dangerous firearms, par ticularly untraceable ghost guns, off our streets,” the Thompson statement said.

“Gun violence has become an epidemic across our nation, and sadly, the city of Vallejo isn’t exempt from the sta tistics,” Acting Vallejo City Manager Terrance Davis said in the statement.

Thompson also announced $3.7 billion had been secured for the Emergency Relief Program for agricultural losses sustained in 2022 due to wildfires, drought, freeze, and other natural disasters, and $1.205 million for the University of California, Davis to acquire “two pieces of equipment which are essential for grape smoke exposure research in our district.”

There are 200 projects, totaling $428 million, spread across California, 42 of which, totaling $69 million, are in the Bay Area.

Third annual 1st bumble bee photo contest starts Jan. 1

susan Hiland SHILAND@DAILYREPUBLIC.NET

FAIRFIELD — The

third annual Robbin Thorp Memorial FirstBumble Bee-of-the-Year Contest will begin at 12:01 a.m. Jan. 1.

The first person to photograph a bumble bee in the Solano-Yolo counties area and email it to the sponsor, Bohart Museum of Entomology, will receive a coffee cup designed with the endangered Franklin’s bumble bee – the bee that Thorp monitored on the California-Oregon border for decades.

Contest coordinator Lynn Kimsey, director of the museum, said the

image must be taken in the wild and emailed to bmuseum@ucdavis. edu, with the time, date and place.

The contest memorializes Professor Thorp (1933-2019), a global authority on bees and a University of California, Davis distinguished emeritus professor of entomology. He died June 7, 2019, at the age 85.

A 30-year member of the UC Davis faculty, he retired in 1994 but continued working until several weeks before his death. Every year he looked forward to seeing the first bumble bee in the area.

Previous winners are ineligible to win the prize.

Man serving life sentence for Solano County crime denied parole

daily Republic sTaff

DRNEWS@DAILYREPUBLIC.NET

FAIRFIELD — The California Board of Parole this week denied the parole of Richard Burnett, who is serving a 20 years-to-life sentence for robbery and forcible digital penetration with a weapon to an 18-year-old girl in 2007.

The board, on Thursday, found Burnett “currently poses an unreasonable risk to the community should he be released,” the Solano County District Attorney’s Office said in a statement. He is not eligible for another parole review for three years.

“This was one of the most disturbing cases I have ever handled in my entire career,” District Attorney Krishna Abrams said, echoing the same statement she gave in June when Burnett’s partner, Erik Parrish, also had his parole denied.

Parrish is serving the same sentence for the same crimes.

The two men, on Jan. 20, 2007, came into the victim’s place of employment with what was later determined to be pellet guns, the Dis-

trict Attorney’s Office statement said.

They “jumped over the counter, demanded money, threatened her, stripped her of her clothing, and forced her to engage in sex acts while holding her at gunpoint,” the DA statement said.

The woman, who was working two jobs and attending college at the time, told the parole board, as accounted in the DA statement, “I will always remember this as the worst day of my life. The inmate has affected my life in countless ways. There isn’t a day that goes by that I am not scared for my life.

“The fear I live with since that day has caused me to look over my shoulder whenever I leave my home, be scared someone will break through any door when I am alone, sleepless nights of night terrors that haunt me, and my self-worth that is lost forever.”

Abrams and the victim’s mother also appeared before the board to oppose Burnett’s release.

Aaron Rosenblatt/Daily Republic

The Admiral’s Mansion on Mare Island in Vallejo, Friday. A day after Sen. Alex Padilla announced $4.5 million in omnibus funds for Solano County projects, Rep. Mike Thompson announced an additional $4.04 million for local projects, including the restoration of the Admiral’s Mansion.

Aaron Rosenblatt/Daily Republic

A bus enters the SolTrans Bus Terminal in Vallejo, Friday.

ABRAMS

Newsom won big in November, but support across state dipped between 2018 and 2022

Tribune ConTenT AgenCy

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Gavin Newsom celebrated his second gubernatorial win last month, beating Republican state Sen. Brian Dahle by a neverin-doubt 18.4%. But a closer examination of the 2022 election shows that Newsom’s support has eroded since he first ran 2018.

Several inland counties in Northern and Central California saw Newsom’s vote totals drop by about 7%. In a handful of other counties he won in 2018 –including two in Southern California – he failed to gain a majority in 2022. In almost every county in the state, Newsom lost a small percentage of the votes he won when he first ran.

Newsom also survived a recall election in 2021, where 61.8% of Californians voted to keep him in office. He went on to receive 59.1% of the vote in 2022 – nearly a three point drop in support in the one year separating the two elections.

Newsom’s political team dismisses the small countywide dips and maintains that winning three statewide elections in four years by a nearly 20% margin – two gubernatorial races and surviving a recall – demonstrates a durable popularity. They also cite his opposition to Proposition 30, which would have raised taxes on millionaires to help more people purchase electric vehicles and to fund wildfire prevention efforts. It failed in November with 42.4% of the vote.

“Any way you cut it, Californians are unequivocally behind this governor,” said Nathan Click, a Democratic strategist and Newsom’s former chief of communications.

counties in particular saw significant drops in support for the governor.

In Stanislaus, southwest of Sacramento and encompassing the cities of Modesto and Turlock, Newsom lost 7 points, as he did in Lassen and Colusa counties. Just south of Stanislaus in Merced, he received 6.4% fewer votes in November than in 2018. In Tulare, he won just 36.4% in November –also a 6.4% drop – despite a better than 34% increase in Democratic registration.

In Kings County, Tulare’s neighbor to the west, support for Newsom fell by 5.7%.

Newsom also lost votes in some urban counties, specifically in Kern, Fresno and San Joaquin, where he dropped about 4%.

“These are workingclass people,” said Jen Jacobs, a Republican strategist for Congressman-elect John Duarte’s campaign. (Duarte beat Democratic Assemblyman Adam Gray by just 600 votes in one of the country’s closest watched races.)

“They’re working to live. And I don’t believe Gavin Newsom understands people who are working to live,” she said. His Hollywood good looks, connections to wealthy

families like the Gettys, and popularity in big, coastal cities “doesn’t land with people who work with their hands,” Jacobs said.

The Central Valley has been in a recession for a while, Jacobs said. Shuttered restaurants and businesses were the norm well before the Covid-19 pandemic changed the economy.

“But no one has cared,” she said.

For spending little money and hardly campaigning, Newsom “did just fine,” at the statewide level, said Andrew Acosta, a Democratic consultant. More concerning for California Democrats is the lack of support in the Central Valley.

“As Democrats, how can we do a better job of getting people out to vote in these Latino workingclass areas, and talking with them about what they’re really concerned about?” Acosta said.

In both San Bernardino and Orange counties in Southern California, Newsom fell short of the majority he won in 2018. In San Bernardino, he received 47.5% of the vote and in Orange, 48.5%. Dahle won both counties.

In Imperial County, east of San Diego, support for Newsom

dipped 5.8% – another loss in a place where he’d won the majority in 2018 with 61.7%.

In two conservative Northern California counties, where support for Newsom was already low, voters seemed even less enthusiastic about his second run.

Just 22.7% of Lassen County voters supported him in 2018, and 15.7% in 2022. Lassen also saw a sizable shift in party preference between those two election years. Registration of No Party Preference voters dropped by just over 800, and the Democratic Party lost almost 300 registrants. Meanwhile, the amount of registered Republicans grew by almost 1,200.

In Colusa County, northwest of Sacramento and encompassing the towns of Williams and Colusa, Newsom received 34.7% of the vote in 2018 and 27.9% in 2022, an almost 7 point drop.

“With the 2018 election being a crucial midterm election, there were significantly more Colusa County Democratic activities related to voter turnout, voter registration and canvassing” than there were in 2022, said Ed Conrado, chair of the Colusa County Democratic Central Committee.

Another contributing factor, according to Conrado, was the county’s overall support for recalling Newsom.

“Our county overwhelmingly supported the governor’s recall in 2021, which may have had an influence on the 2022 results,” he said. Just over 66% of voters supported the recall.

In neighboring Sutter and Glenn counties, Newsom lost support by nearly 5%.

CHP arrests ‘potential serial rapist’ after three south Sacramento attacks near Highway 99

Tribune ConTenT AgenCy

California Highway Patrol investigators arrested a man accused in the rapes of two women and the attempted rape of a third in separate attacks in the same area off Highway 99 in south Sacramento.

The CHP Valley Division Investigative Services Unit spotted a similar pattern in the attacks that began in mid-October, all within a 2.4-mile radius adjacent to the northbound lanes.

Nabil Elomari, 24, of Sacramento, was arrested Thursday at his home on suspicion of rape and kidnapping, the CHP South Sacramento Area Office announced Friday afternoon in a news release. The CHP, in the release, characterized the arrest as the capture of a “potential serial rapist.”

Elomari remained in custody Friday at the Sacramento County Jail. His bail was set at $425,000, and he is scheduled to make his first appearance Tuesday afternoon in Sacramento Superior Court.

Jail records show Elomari also faces felony charges of making criminal threats resulting in death or great bodily injury, assault with a deadly weapon or instrument, three other counts of sexual assault and a misdemeanor battery charge.

The Investigative Services Unit tracks sexual assaults reported within

the CHP Valley Division, which has its headquaters in Sacramento and spans from Chico on the north end to Tracy on the south end. It reaches South Lake Tahoe to the east and Woodland to the west.

CHP investigators noticed that the three reported incidents each involved a female victim who had been injured. The CHP said the attacks occurred within the same area; two of them happened at the same location.

All three attacks involved a male and a similar description. The CHP said the suspect in each attack was driving a car with a similar description.

The suspect raped two of the women at knifepoint inside the suspect’s vehicle, the CHP said. The third attack resulted in the attempted rape.

Highway Patrol investigators later identified Elomari as a person of interest and were able to collect DNA in one of the rapes.

The CHP said the Sacramento County Crime Lab analyzed the DNA and on Wednesday matched it with Elomari. The CHP did not indicate in the news release what DNA sample was compared with the collected evidence to match it to Elomari.

After Elomari’s arrest Thursday, investigators searched his home and found additional evidence potentially relevant to the sexual assault cases, the CHP said.

49ers team pays holiday visit to San Quentin State Prison

Tribune ConTenT AgenCy

Why does one person scale the heights of athletic achievement while another person with the same abilities violates the law and ends up in prison?

That question sparked discussion Monday as 10 players from the San Francisco 49ers and the team’s chaplain, Earl Smith, paid a holiday visit to San Quentin State Prison.

The last time Smith and the players visited the prison was Dec. 12, 2018, just days after Tony York, son of the San Francisco 49ers owners Denise DeBartolo York and John York, died by suicide. York was known for his philanthropic efforts, including work with incarcerated youths.

“I really believe this is something that Tony would want us to do,” Smith said. York’s twin sisters Jenna and Mara, who helped plan the event, accompanied the players on the visit.

For Smith, who also serves as chaplain for the Golden State Warriors, the visit to the prison was a homecoming. From 1983 to 2006, Smith was a Protestant chaplain at San Quentin, beginning at age 27. During his 23-year tenure there, Smith helped to negotiate truces between rival gangs, witnessed 12 executions and played chess with Charles Manson.

Smith said that when he was a chaplain at San Quentin he tried to schedule activities for inmates from Thanksgiving through New Year’s Day because the holidays are a particularly hard time to be in prison.

“I remember what it is like to be locked up, no

resources, nobody to listen to you,” Smith said.

While talking with inmates, several players noted that their backgrounds might not be very different from those of the inmates.

“I’ve got a lot of family members, friends, brothers that grew up in and out of jail,” said 49ers cornerback Qwuantrezz Knight. “Some of them are in prison right now.”

Defensive lineman T.Y. McGill said his uncle died in a Georgia prison.

“That could have been prevented,” McGill said. “My uncle was left out in the heat. He had a heart condition.”

Linebacker Azeez AlShaair said, “There is not a big difference between me and you. I grew up homeless most of my life. Talking about incarcera tion, I have cousins who have been in and out of prison.”

Growing up in Stock ton in the 1970s, Smith himself was involved in drugs and nearly died at the age of 19 after being shot six times by a man who owed him money. Two of the bullets couldn’t be removed from Smith’s body, and one remains lodged just above his heart.

Rahsaan Thomas, who has been in San Quentin since 2000 after being convicted of second-degree murder, asked the players a question. He wanted to know how they were going to use the power of their celebrity to “to make the good stuff cool.”

“Because in my neighborhood,” said Thomas, who hails from the Brownsville area of Brooklyn in New York City, “everything that was

cool was bad. Violence was cool, drugs was cool, ditching school was cool, being a womanizer was cool.”

Since coming to San Quentin, Thomas has turned his life around. He earned his associate’s degree there and is co-host and co-producer of the Pulitzer Prize-nominated podcast “Ear Hustle.” He is also co-founder of the Empowerment Avenue Writer’s Cohort.

In January, Gov. Gavin Newsom commuted Thomas’ sentence of 55 1/2 years to life, and Thomas expects to be released on parole soon.

Perhaps the best known player to made the trip was defensive end Arik Armstead.

“For me it starts with

being humble,” Armstead said, “realizing that I’m not in the position I’m in today because of something I did. If it wasn’t for God blessing me and my family, I’m nothing.”

“When you come from that humble mentality,” Armstead continued, “you start to realize that, man, all these things I’ve been blessed with, why didn’t that happen for other people?”

Armstead said he was astounded when he learned that prisons use third-grade reading scores to forecast how many beds they’re going to need in the future.

“That’s when I got passionate about education,” he said. “There are a lot of different things that

people can do to solve the inequities in our society, but I feel like education is the key.”

He has founded a nonprofit, the Armstead Academic Project, to help kids in low-income neighborhoods get better access to educational resources.

Al-Shaair said that growing up in Tampa, Florida, he was surrounded by negativity.

“All I saw was violence,” Al-Shaair said. “My father used to abuse my mother. I saw him throw my sister through the wall for getting her period. I saw one of my friends get shot and killed.”

But Al-Shaair said he didn’t let what was going on around him deter him.

“I had to make conscious decisions and choices,” he said. “I can tell you that my life is a direct reflection of things I chose to do.”

Al-Shaair said his grandmother offered to pay him $5 if he could memorize the poem “Invictus” by William Ernest Henley. He said while he has forgotten most of the poem, the final two lines stick in his mind: “I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.”

Three Central Valley

Xavier Mascarenas/The Sacramento Bee/TNS Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks to reporters after recall election results showed he would likely remain in office.

Musk says it again: Tesla share sales will stop after stock tanks

BloomBerg

Elon Musk said again that he’ll stop selling Tesla shares, after disposing almost $40 billion of his holdings contributed to the stock plummeting to a two-year low.

“I won’t sell stock until – I don’t know – probably two years from now, definitely not next year under any circumstances, and probably not the year thereafter,” Musk said during a Twitter Spaces live-audio conversation late Thursday. Tesla shares were little changed in premarket trading as of 4:30 a.m. New York time Friday.

The Tesla chief executive made similar proclamations in April and August, only to then keep selling more shares to help fund his purchase of Twitter. While his response to a question from longtime investor Ross Gerber may have reassured investors about one element of what’s been hurting Tesla’s stock, he offered a downbeat outlook for the

economy next year.

“I think we are in a recession, and I think 2023 is going to be quite a serious recession,” he said. “It’s going to be, in my opinion, comparable to 2009. I don’t know if it’s going to be a little worse or a little better, but I think it’s, in my view, likely to be comparable. That means demand for any kind of optional, discretionary item, especially if it’s a big-ticket item, will be lower.”

Tesla has had a difficult end to the year, as opposed to the “epic” one

Musk had predicted. The electric-vehicle maker has cut prices and slashed production in China, and Musk has repeatedly criticized the Federal Reserve for raising interest rates. His sometimes conspiratorial and often politically charged tweeting also has turned off some consumers. To boost year-end sales in the U.S., the carmaker has turned to generous incentives.

After a five-day losing streak and declines in 12 of the last 14 sessions, Tesla’s market value has fallen below the

$400 billion mark for the first time since November 2020. Musk said Thursday he raised cash from stock sales to prepare for a “worst-case scenario,” and that the moves reflect his fear after living through two big recessions.

In a wide-ranging conversation that lasted more than an hour, the billionaire said he favors a buyback of Tesla shares once the company is more confident in the direction of the economy. Musk also pushed back against criticism that he’s spending too much time on Twitter and not enough on Tesla.

“There’s not a single important Tesla meeting that I’ve missed this entire time, so it’s not like I’m totally missing in action,” he said, adding that Tesla is many times more complex than the social media company.

Musk also said he aims to start production of a “meaningful volume” of lithium within two years at a refinery being built in Texas for use in Tesla’s EV batteries.

Key inflation gauge cools, US consumer spending misses forecasts

The Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation measures eased in November while consumer spending stagnated, suggesting the central bank’s interest-rate hikes are helping to cool both price pressures and broader demand –with more tightening on the way.

The personal consumption expenditures price index excluding food and energy, which Fed Chair Jerome Powell has stressed is a more accurate measure of where inflation is heading, rose 0.2% in November from a month earlier, Commerce Department data showed Friday. That matched estimates, but data for the prior month were revised higher.

From a year earlier, the gauge was up 4.7%, a step down from a 5% gain in October. The overall PCE price index increased 0.1% and was up 5.5% from a year ago, the lowest since October 2021 but still well above the central bank’s 2% goal.

Personal spending, adjusted for changes in prices, stalled in November, the weakest since July and below forecast. An increase in services spending, led by

restaurants and accommodation, offset a decline in outlays on merchandise. New vehicles were the leading contributor of that decrease.

Like the consumer price index figures released earlier this month, the figures point to a welcome retreat in price pressures and suggest the US has passed peak inflation. While many expect to see a rapid pullback in inflation over the next year, the Fed is ultimately aiming for a 2% goal.

Powell emphasized that last week when he said the central bank needs “substantially more evidence” to have confidence that inflation is on a sustained downward path.

Looking ahead, the central bank is expected to continue raising interest rates into next year – to a higher level than many investors had expected –and remain restrictive for some time. As for the size of any February rate hike, Powell said the decision will be based on incoming data, like Friday’s figures and others for December to be released throughout next month.

“It seems reasonable to expect people to become more cautious, now that they have run down about half of their accumulated

pandemic savings, and labor market conditions are softening,” Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, said in a note.

While he sees consumption expanding at a robust pace in the current quarter, “we would be amazed if that pace is repeated in the first quarter of next year,” Shepherdson said.

The median estimates in a Bloomberg survey of economists were for a 0.2% advance in the core PCE price index and a 0.1% gain in inflation-adjusted spending. US stock futures fluctuated in early trading while Treasury yields bounced higher.

The report indicates that consumers lost momentum last month amid higher interest rates and elevated inflation. While the strength of the jobs market and rising wages have bolstered household spending, Americans are tapping into savings and leaning more on credit cards, raising the question of whether consumers will be able to continue to drive economic growth through 2023.

The saving rate ticked up to 2.4% in November, the first increase since July but among the lowest

Meta agrees to pay $725 million over Cambridge Analytica scandal

BloomBerg News

Meta Platforms Inc. has agreed to pay $725 million to settle a long-running lawsuit that claimed Facebook illegally shared user data with the research firm Cambridge Analytica.

It’s “the largest recovery ever achieved in a data privacy class action and the most Facebook has ever paid to resolve a private class action,” the plaintiffs said in a court filing late Thursday.

The settlement brings Meta a step closer to resolving the 2018 suit brought by Facebook users after it was revealed that the UK research firm connected to Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign for president gained access to the data of as many as 87 million of the

social media network’s subscribers. The agreement requires the approval of a federal judge overseeing the suit.

Lawyers for the consumers had steadily gained leverage to pry into the company’s internal records to back up their claims that Facebook failed to safeguard their personal data. Facebook’s parent company could have been on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars more had it gone to trial and lost the case.

“We pursued a settlement as it’s in the best interest of our community and shareholders,” Meta said in an emailed statement. “Over the last three years we revamped our approach to privacy and implemented a compre-

hensive privacy program. We look forward to continuing to build services people love and trust with privacy at the forefront.”

Since the case was filed, Facebook has stopped allowing third parties to access data about users through their friends, plaintiffs said in a court filing detailing the settlement. The company has also strengthened its ability to restrict and monitor how third parties acquire and use Facebook users’ information, and improved its methods for telling users what information Facebook collects and shares about them, according to the filing.

Last month, Google agreed to pay a total of

readings on record, the Commerce Department report showed.

Inflation-adjusted outlays for merchandise dropped 0.6%, the worst since February, while spending on services rose 0.3%.

Many economists expect the US to fall into recession within the next year, but the outlook remains highly uncertain. That said, economic activity has generally accelerated in the second half of the year. Data out Thursday showed gross domestic product rose an annualized 3.2% in the third quarter, higher than previously estimated.

Rising wages and lower gas prices gave many Americans the wherewithal to keep spending in November. Inflation-adjusted disposable income rose 0.3%. Wages and salaries, unadjusted for prices, were up 0.5% for a second month.

Sustained wage gains, particularly in service sectors, could keep inflation persistently higher than the Fed’s goal for some time, underscoring the importance of the labor market to officials’ decision-making in the months ahead.

Recession worries remain as we enter new year

Fears about a recession in 2023 are common in the financial press.

Consumers everywhere are feeling the pain of higher prices.

The U.S. Consumer Price Index has risen at the fastest rate since the early 1980s. Historically, recessions and widespread job losses follow such high bouts of inflation. This “stagflation” is what occurred in the 1970s and early 1980s: an unpleasant mix of double-digit inflation, declining economic activity and high unemployment.

What are the risks that history repeats?

The outlook for a recession in the U.S. and other leading economies is rising, primarily because central banks need to continue raising rates to help suppress inflation. In the U.S., that would likely entail inflation falling but remaining above 3% and short-term interest rates stabilizing around 4% This event would not be a soft landing or stagflation, either.

Recessions are unpleasant. Financial markets are struggling to price this scenario because the indicators are not clear. The result will be continued volatility for several months ahead. But this recession is likely to be different from previous events. As references, the 2020 Covid-19-induced recession was deep but short-lived. The 2007-2009 global financial crisis produced deep job losses and a very weak recovery. The 2001 recession was mild yet was characterized by a “jobless recovery” with minimal job gains for years after the recession.

Can we have a job-full recovery this time?

The most likely outcome in 2023 is lower inflation and declining real GDP for a time. We will likely see more layoffs with unemployment rising from its very low 3.7% rate, but probably not by much. Compared with past recessions, a socalled job-full recession would have unemployment below 5%.

This time, the labor market will likely weaken, but not as much as some fear. The reason stems from the fact that much of the labor demand reflects the need

for certain skills across a range of industries, and the labor supply remains insufficient for the jobs at hand, even with lower growth. Even if firms cut their job openings by 20% and increase layoffs by 20%, the U.S. labor market would still be relatively tight. And some firms may be reluctant to release workers because of fear those workers would not be available when needed, as was the case for some businesses during Covid.

Using the Fed’s June 2022 economic projections as reference, there are three scenarios likely in the coming months: a hard landing, stagflation and a somewhat soft landing.

A hard landing. The Fed reaches a final rate of 4.5% due to fears that inflation is entrenched into the economy. The result would be falling interest rates, volatile equity markets probably for the entire economy and year and disrupted labor markets.

Stagflation. Two of the three ingredients for stagflation are present: high inflation and low or no economic growth. But the third factor, high unemployment, is missing. The U.S. labor market is thriving with few signs of abating.

Consider the following, which indicates that repeating the 1970s is unlikely:

n The U.S. economy added more than half a million jobs in July and another 315,000 in August.

n The unemployment rate is at a low 3.7%.

n Job openings are still plentiful despite the growth slowdown.

n Some of the supply-side issues that fed inflation over the past year are improving.

n Energy prices (headline inflation) are trending down.

Other signs are mixed and indicate core inflation may stay elevated longer. Although companies can easily reprice most goods and services to reflect the new reality, that is not the case for housing and services broadly, where prices have accelerated in recent months.

Monthly mortgage and rent payments are the largest single expense

Mark Sievers Wealth matters

BloomBerg

Al Drago/Bloomberg file (2021)

Elon Musk, chief executive officer of Tesla, arrives at court during the SolarCity trial in Delaware, July 13, 2021.

scandal

From Page A7

$391.5 million to 40 U.S. states to resolve a probe into controversial location-tracking practices in what state officials called the largest such privacy settlement in U.S. history. Separately, a judge last month approved a $90 million Meta deal to

settle a suit over the use of browser cookies and Facebook’s “Like” button to track user activity. Read more: Zuckerberg to Testify in Cambridge Analytica Privacy Lawsuit

Meta said in an August court filing that it had agreed to settle the Cambridge Analytica suit, but no terms were revealed at the time. A filing a month earlier showed Meta Chief Executive Officer Mark

Zuckerberg would have to sit for as long as six hours of questioning by plaintiffs’ lawyers. The same filing indicated former Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg would have to testify as well.

Facebook had argued it disclosed its practices in user agreements. It had also said that anyone sharing their information on a social network shouldn’t count on holding onto their privacy.

for most households and are unlikely to decline (much) soon.

A danger of high inflation is that it becomes stubbornly “sticky.” When people expect prices to rise even further, they will understandably ask for higher pay. To make up for any difference in their profit margins, employers in turn charge higher prices

Forecast

From Page A7

More generally, economists expect the PCE price indexes to decelerate slower than the Labor Department’s consumer

for the goods and services they provide, which in turn leads to demand for higher pay, feeding the wage-price spiral.

Soft Landing. The Fed gets everything right. Although measures of inflation expectations for the next 12 months have risen, most consumers, business leaders and the financial markets do not expect such inflation rates to persist much longer, a much different outlook from the mindset of the 1970s.

Although the Fed was late in raising rates last

price index. By the end of next year, Fed officials anticipate core PCE inflation to be around 3.5%.

In addition to the softer consumer spending figures, a separate report showed more moderate demand for business equipment. Orders placed with US manufacturers for

year, it is now intent on driving inflation down even if a recession occurs. When a central bank does that, it usually gets what it wants.

Any recession is most likely short and not deep. Or at least we can all hope so.

Mark Sievers, president of Epsilon Financial Group, is a certified financial planner with a master’s in business administration from UC Berkeley. Contact him at mark@wealth matters.com.

non-defense capital goods excluding aircraft rose 0.2% in November after a sharp downward revision to the prior month, according to Commerce Department. Total bookings for durable goods sank 2.1%, the most since April 2020. The data aren’t adjusted for inflation.

Josh Edelson/AFP via Getty Images/TNS file

Meta (formerly Facebook) corporate headquarters is seen in Menlo Park, nov. 9.

Zelensky seeks victory. Will US pay the price?

Clad in his trademark fatigues, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky hit all the notes one would expect in his address to a joint session of Congress. Ukraine is on the front lines of a global battle against authoritarianism. Failure to beat back Vladimir Putin now will leave the U.S. and its allies to face an even more menacing future.

“Your money is not charity,” Zelensky said. “It’s an investment in global security.”

Not least, Zelensky appealed for more American assistance, as the conflict in Ukraine becomes a grim contest in economic and military endurance-and as the prospects for U.S. assistance become less certain.

Wars have phases, even if the divisions between them are messy. The first phase of this war saw Ukraine preserve its independence by surviving a multipronged Russian attack. The second phase saw Ukraine begin clearing Russian forces from its territory, with major gains in the east and the south.

In both phases, U.S. support arguably provided the critical margin of success, by forecasting Russian attacks, providing badly needed money and weapons, and even helping to war-game Kyiv’s breakout assault around Kharkiv in September. Now comes another phase, and foreign aid will be no less vital.

This phase is murky, for the moment: It is not clear which side will have the initiative or the advantage.

Ukraine hopes that the liberation of Kherson was a prelude, rather than a culmination – that it can keep battering Russian forces that, in some cases, are pitifully ill-equipped for winter.

But the Russians, under General Sergei Surovikin, are preparing layered defenses and augmenting their numbers with new recruits. Moscow may mount new offensives come the new year; until then, it seeks to crush Ukraine’s economy and national will by destroying its energy infrastructure. This is a strategy of slow, unrelenting brutalization: After months of insisting that victory was near, Putin now concedes his war will be long, and maintains Russia has “no limitations” on military spending for it.

Indeed, this conflict has defied neat distinctions between wars of movement and wars of attrition, between the type of wars we might expect in the 21st century and those the world experienced in the 20th. Ukraine’s eastern counteroffensive resembled a World War IIstyle blitzkrieg; the ongoing Russian campaign around Bakhmut looks more like Passchendaele or the Somme. The war has featured hightech drones, HIMARS and now Patriot missiles; it has also involved mountains of relatively low-tech artillery shells.

No one quite knows how it will end, but the coming year will tax the stamina of both sides.

Russia must keep its isolated, sanctioned economy going, in part by relying

more on the world’s other rogues. Ukraine must keep Russian infrastructure strikes from cratering its economy and depleting its air defenses, which means more money and military aid from the West.

Ukraine also needs more advanced weapons to liberate more territory – bigger armed drones and longer-range missiles that can rip up the Russian rear echelon, heavy tanks that can penetrate well-prepared defenses along the front. And both sides will need ever-more artillery to sustain current operations, let alone undertake new ones. To some degree, the war will hinge on whether the Russians can produce more 152-millimeter shells than the West can produce 155-millimeter shells – which makes the conflict a battle of the industrial bases.

Kyiv has decent prospects in this battle. Russia started with a massive artillery advantage, but sanctions and export controls have hamstrung its defense industry, while America is ramping up production. Thanks to the just-passed National Defense Authorization Act, the Pentagon can now enter into multiyear contracts for munitions Ukraine needs, rather than raiding its own stockpiles.

But Zelensky wouldn’t be in Washington if everything was copacetic. Rumors of a Russian diplomatic trap – a peace bid meant to freeze the war and forestall the next Ukrainian offensive – are in the air. “It would be naïve to wait for steps towards peace from Russia,” Zelensky said, “which enjoys being a terrorist state.”

Some Pentagon officials are reportedly nervous that aid for Ukraine is depleting the munitions set aside for America’s own war plans. The longer this conflict extends, the more its demands will compete, in the minds of U.S. policymakers, with those of other contingencies Washington may face. Putin knows this, which may be why he seems so confident after such a terrible year.

There is little sign of aid fatigue right now: The White House greeted Zelensky with promises of another $1.85 billion in military gear, and Congress is set to appropriate another $45 billion to see Ukraine through the coming months. But the influence of Ukraine skeptics in the new Republican-led House of Representatives must be making Kyiv nervous about what happens after that: It’s not clear that today’s standing ovations will translate into an open checkbook next year.

Putin’s dream is Zelensky’s nightmare – that America will fall short as the Ukraine war goes long.

Hal Brands is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist.

The Henry Kissinger Distinguished Professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, he is co-author, most recently, of “Danger Zone: The Coming Conflict with China” and a member of the State Department’s Foreign Affairs Policy Board.

Looking at some new ‘help’ from Vacaville

Are you plagued by a perplexing parking problem? Tired of the timeless trolling in a hunt for an open space to eventually bellow, “Eureka?” Mollified when you finally stash your ride within a day’s trudge of your favorite tattoo parlor? Well, ’tis time to rejoice as help is on your horizon.

The proactive oligarchy that runs the village of Vacaville has found a phone app or something that will determine available parking spaces in the city’s tastefully designed parking lots, hi-tech monitors of some kind are being installed in each parking area and the data they scan on the empty parking spaces will be available to local slot seekers and Lord knows who else.

A new arm of the city’s constabulary, named “Space Command,” will be in charge of monitoring motorized movement to and fro, come and go, ebb and flow, etc.

“We’ll make sure that no empty space goes undetected or underserved,” purred Carlotta Surh-Valentz, the first openly inquisitive chief of Space Command. “We’ll know which spaces are popular, vacant and/or being used, who’s using them, and if they’re being naughty or nice.”

What a relief for the hamlet’s inhabitants having not a care in the world as they cruise from driveway to destination and back. In addition, there’ll be no more need asking yourself, “Now where did I park my car?”

The force will guide you.

Bill Ferguson Vacaville

Kudos to Solano ROV

Due to the razor-thin margin,

COMMENTARY

two votes, by which Measure S, the Fairfield-Suisun Unified School District school bond, was approved on the Nov. 8. midterm election, the Central Solano Citizen Taxpayer Group and the Tax Watchers met with Assistant Registrar of Voters John Gardner and proceeded to conduct a recount on Dec. 14.

I just want to commend Gardner, Mike Lopez and their entire ROV staff on the wellorganized, professional manner in which the recount was conducted. The ballot envelopes and ballots we wanted to see were all accessible and staff did an outstanding job of explaining why certain envelopes and signatures were rejected.

We greatly appreciate the professionalism and transparency within the Registrar of Voters office. Kudos to them all.

Colleen Britton Vacaville

Speeding driver kills puppy, endangers neighborhood

I live in the Tolenas area of Fairfield and we have been experiencing road rage, along

with cars speeding through our neighborhood.

We just experienced one friend losing their beloved puppy dog, Lucas, who got hit by a speeding car on Strauss Drive. The driver was going so fast that they weren’t even aware of hitting Lucas, and the car never stopped.

We are all devastated over our friend’s loss.

People with pets need to be aware of where their pets are and call the police at 707428-7300 if they can get the license plate numbers and report them when they are driving over the speed limit so this does not happen again.

Sandra Bearden Fairfield

Letters to the Editor

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

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

New IRS requirements raise questions about vow to only expand audits on rich

Next month, the U.S. Postal Service will be busier than usual. Not because of late Christmas cards or thank-you letters, but because of the extra Form 1099-Ks the IRS will be mailing out.

Under the American Rescue Plan, thirdparty payment facilitators like Venmo, eBay, Etsy and Airbnb are now required to send Form 1099-Ks to individuals reporting 2022 gross annual income of as little as $600. That’s $50 a month.

The previous annual reporting threshold was $20,000.

The lower reporting threshold shouldn’t affect people’s tax liability – at least in theory.

Income that was untaxable prior to the reporting change should still be untaxable. However, simply receiving a Form 1099-K will make many taxpayers believe they have a tax obligation, even when they don’t.

Some personal transactions between friends, family members and roommates – like reimbursements for shared rides, rent aggregation and gifts – will be mistakenly classified as business transactions and reported on 1099-Ks.

Or a taxpayer who sold, say, $800 worth of used books and electronics on eBay in 2022 may wrongly assume he owes tax on the full gross income reported on his 1099-K. But if the taxpayer sold the used goods for less than he paid for them, he should be able to deduct those costs and avoid additional taxes.

The IRS claims the new 1099-K reporting will allow the agency to identify unreported income, increase tax collections and reduce the tax gap.

Government reports have suggested that small businesses and gig workers account for a disproportionate share of the tax gap – the total amount of tax underpayments and nonpayments. Lowering the 1099-K

reporting threshold to $600 per month is clearly meant to address that perceived gap.

To which one may respond, “But isn’t closing the tax gap about stopping millionaires and big corporations from cheating on their taxes? After all, that’s why the Biden administration sought and received $80 billion so the IRS could expand audits and enforcement.”

The short answer is no.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen did send a letter to the IRS commissioner directing that the new funding not be used to increase audit levels on small businesses or households earning less than $400,000 relative to historical levels. But Yellen’s directive is doesn’t carry the weight of law or even regulation – it’s mere political theater.

The IRS can require payment facilitators to send millions of additional Form 1099-Ks to middle-class taxpayers and small businesses and still honestly say that it hasn’t increased their audit level.

The agency can even send more notices to middle-class taxpayers informing them of underreported income discrepancies that must be resolved within 30 days, and this also wouldn’t count as increasing the audit level.

In fact, the IRS could increase the audit level of middle-class Americans to the historically far higher rates from 1980 and make each audit more painful, while still arguing that they technically didn’t raise audit levels relative to historical levels.

There’s a reason the rhetoric about the IRS only cracking down on the wealthy doesn’t match the reality.

Big-government advocates and politicians need Americans to believe that higher taxes will only affect “the other guy” – specifically, the very wealthy and

big corporations. That’s how they get their agenda passed.

But there just aren’t enough super wealthy people to soak to afford a big-government spending agenda for long, and countries that do soak the rich have a funny habit of driving out most of their wealth.

So, eventually, they resort to more and more taxes on the middle class.

Western European countries with expansive welfare states tax the middle class far more heavily than the U.S. does. U.S. expansions of social spending and green-energy boondoggles also must ultimately come on the backs of the middle class, one way or another.

The American middle class paid for the 2020-2022 spending spree with the inflation tax and massive new debt – i.e., future taxes. And there are many other direct and indirect ways that taxes ultimately harm the middle class.

One unfortunate consequence of cracking down on $600-peryear Venmo and eBay accounts is that it drives people off these platforms to avoid the IRS hassle, not to mention the identity security concerns of sharing their Social Security numbers with payment facilitators.

This is bad for these companies, Many have seen their stock prices drop 50% to 70%. But it’s also bad for consumers. These companies facilitate entrepreneurship and the gig economy, and they give small businesses tools to compete against large corporations.

A bigger, more powerful IRS accessing more private information will stifle innovators and small businesses struggling in a slowing economy. It would be nice if Washington would stifle its own runaway spending instead.

Preston Brashers is a senior policy analyst specializing in tax policy at The Heritage Foundation’s Hermann Center for the Federal Budget.

Hal Brands

Preston Brashers

THURSDAY, DEC. 22

5:41 a.m. — Commercial burglary, 4900 block of PEABODY ROAD 9:03 a.m. — Vandalism, 2400 block of NORTH TEXAS STREET 9:50 a.m. — Grand theft, 300 block of SAN ANDREAS STREET 10:06 a.m. — Indecent exposure, 2300 block of NORTH TEXAS STREET 10:22 a.m. — Robbery, 1600 block of WEST TEXAS STREET 10:34 a.m. — Battery, BEL AIR CIRCLE 11:36 a.m. — Battery, CIRCLE DRIVE 11:41 a.m. — Forgery, 2500 block of HUBER DRIVE 12:42 p.m. — Grand theft, 5000 block of W. R. GLUSEN DRIVE 12:47 p.m. — Forgery, 2200 block of CURRIER PLACE 1:24 p.m. — Commercial burglary, 1900 block of DOVER AVENUE 2:31 p.m. — Hit-and-run property damage, 1400 block of NORTHWOOD DRIVE 2:42 p.m. — Vehicle burglary, 1300 block of TRAVIS BOULEVARD 3:14 p.m. — Hit-and-run property damage, 1600 block of PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE 4:34 p.m. — Battery, 2400 block of WHITE DRIVE 6:38 p.m. — Battery, 3800 block of STAFFORD SPRINGS WAY 6:48 p.m. — Vehicle theft, 1300 block of TRAVIS BOULEVARD 7:03 p.m. — Hit-and-run property damage, PEABODY ROAD 7:26 p.m. — Drunken driving, WESTBOUND AIR BASE PARKWAY 8:59 p.m. — Reckless driver, CEMENT HILL ROAD FRIDAY, DEC. 23 1:54 a.m. — Grand theft, 1800 block of NEPHI DRIVE 6:20 a.m. — Trespassing, 1000

block of BROADWAY STREET 9:10 a.m. — Vehicle theft, 1900 block of GRANDE CIRCLE 12:27 p.m. — Indecent exposure, 1400 block of WEST TEXAS STREET 12:55 p.m. — Hit—and—run property damage, 5100 block of BUSINESS CENTER DRIVE 1:34 p.m. — Reckless driver, PEABODY ROAD 1:51 p.m. — Vehicle theft, 1300 block of TRAVIS BOULEVARD 3:14 p.m. — Reckless driver, EAST TABOR AVENUE 4:26 p.m. — Battery, 5100 block of DUREN CIRCLE 4:27 p.m. — Vehicle theft, 2900 block of BANYAN COURT 6:10 p.m. — Hit—and—run property damage, EASTBOUND AIR BASE PARKWAY 7:08 p.m. — Grand theft, 1000 block of BROADWAY STREET 7:28 p.m. — Hit—and—run property damage, 1500 block of TRAVIS BOULEVARD 9:43 p.m. — Trespassing, 1500 block of WEST TEXAS STREET

SuiSun City

THURSDAY DEC. 22

12:40 a.m.

Fraud, 300 block of MAYFIELD CIRCLE 1:11 p.m.

Fraud, 600 block of BARNACLE WAY FRIDAY, DEC. 23

1:24 p.m. — Reckless driver, MERGANSER DRIVE/SUNSET AVENUE

for

been destroyed.” Many people had been out on the streets as it was the weekend, he said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy condemned the attack as another crime by Russia just before Christmas.

The photos of the

dead, he said, will likely be flagged as sensitive content by social media. “But this is not sensitive content, this is the real life of Ukraine and Ukrainians,” he added.

There are no military targets in the area. “This is killing for the sake of intimidation and pleasure,” Zelenskyy said. “The world needs to see what absolute evil we are fighting.”

Russia is showing

potential signs of an attack on northern Ukraine from Belarus, according to the U.S. Institute for the Study of War (ISW).

ISW experts said that such an attack was still unlikely, but that the possible danger must be taken seriously.

The Ukrainian military also announced on Saturday that Russia had moved some of its battalions there.

British intelligence

said on Saturday however that a lack of ammunition and missiles “highly likely remains the key limiting factor on Russian offensive operations” in Ukraine.

The Russian forces’ stockpile of artillery ammunition may not be big enough “to enable large-scale offensive operations,” according to the update published on Saturday morning.

They planned on serving 1,000 people and included unwrapped pres ents for about 50 families.

Amanda Fuller is the unofficial “Leader of the Toy Box” and was respon sible for getting all the toys organized to go out.

upending economies. This time, an extreme swerve in the jet stream was blamed.

Power grids were taxed by frigid temperatures, causing one of the most sprawling U.S. power outages in years. Nearly 1.6 million homes and businesses from Texas to New England were without power on Saturday morning according to Poweroutage.us, which tracks utility websites.

The number fell to almost 850,000 by 4 p.m. on the East Coast. North Carolina and Maine were hardest-hit, accounting for nearly two-thirds the outages.

The nation’s largest power grid, which stretches from Illinois to New Jersey and serves 65 million people, said it might be forced to employ rolling blackouts as the cold drove demand for electricity to almost unprecedented levels. The grid operator, PJM Interconnection LLC, urged customers to conserve.

“The possibility of rotating customer outages is real,” said PJM Senior Vice President of Operations Mike Bryson in a video posted on Twitter. “We are going to do everything we can to prevent that, but we think it’s important that consumers are ready in case we have to take that step.”

The U.S. Energy Department declared a power emergency in Texas, citing a shortage of electricity as an arctic winter blast causes power plants to fail.

In Canada, where every province and territory is under an emergency weather warning, more than 200,000 customers out of about 4.6 million were without power on Saturday, according to utility Hydro-Québec.

The Tennessee Valley Authority ordered rolling blackouts for the second straight day as demand

Nashville Mayor John Cooper asked the city’s NFL team, the Tennessee Titans, to postpone its game against the Houston Texans. The game kicked off about an hour later than scheduled.

U.S. natural gas production suffered its worst one-day drop in more than a decade on Friday as liquids froze in pipes, forcing wells to shut. Supplies of the heating and power-generation fuel across the continental U.S. shrank by nearly 10 billion cubic feet, or roughly 10%, from the previous day as temperatures across key producing areas including in top supplier Texas fell below freezing, according to BloombergNEF data.

Meanwhile, domestic demand surged to the highest daily level since early 2019. Early pipeline nominations tracked by BNEF indicate that gas supplies may start to rebound Saturday while still trailing normal levels.

The storm moved over western Quebec by Saturday morning, keeping conditions in the U.S. Northeast windy, said Marty Rausch, a meteorologist with the Weather Prediction Center. It will begin to lift out Sunday into Monday, when the central and eastern parts of the U.S. will begin to warm up.

The storm, which forecasters described as a o nce-in-a-decade phenomenon because of its size and speed, left more than 200 million Americans – around 60% of the country – under some form of winter weather warning or advisory starting Friday. It achieved the status of a “bomb cyclone” as it swept east.

It also created “substantial disruptions” at FedEx Express hubs in Memphis, Tennessee, and Indianapolis, potentially delaying holiday packages from arriving by Christmas, the shipping company said in a statement.

“I am happy to stay in my toy box and get some things done,” she said. She licked the enve lopes with gift cards for the teenagers since toys were no longer as loved as they were when the kids were younger.

“I have to make sure they stand out and don’t get thrown away,” she said.

Catina Dominguez of Vacaville came with her husband, Lupe Dominguez, to volunteer in the morning, her grandkids, Xavier Lopez-Dominguez, 10, and Alessandra LopezDominguez, 7,, along with her daughter.

From

with the newer LED lights because they cost less than the old lights, but they also have prorated their electric bill to save on cost.

“My husband said we can keep doing this as long as we don’t buy any more sheds,” she said. “So that gives me an idea of how much room I have for storage.”

Avila begins decorating right after Halloween because it takes a lot of time to get the lights up.

This year has been difficult as she is battling cancer, and undergoing treatment has meant her usual Christmas activities were put on hold. Friends helped decorate the house, which made her happy as she is in her 70s and her husband in his 80s.

“One of the things I was going to miss this year was the Christmas shows,” she said, sitting in her driveway by a firepit, and with a lighted hat on her head.

But her neighbor made sure that she didn’t miss out on all the shows.

Tony Molina is like an adopted grandson; he has known her his whole life. On Monday, he surprised her by bringing his band, Yuppy Liberation Front, to her garage and setting up a surprise concert for her.

This was the second year she brought them all to help out. Her oldest son, Andrew, is a Marine and deployed overseas.

“We are a military family. My husband was in the Marines and so is

my son,” she said.

Volunteering their time on Christmas Eve has become a new tradition for them.

Granddaughter Alessandra was having fun handing out packaging

for the food and Xavier was enjoying seeing the people.

“We are a family that believes in giving back,” Catina said.

“She couldn’t go to his concert so he brought the concert to her house,” Linda Molina, his proud mother, said.

The five-member band are all students at California State University, Sacramento. Tony is working toward his master’s degree in music.

Neighbors flitted in and out of the garage, some sipped wine and other hot drinks to stay warm in the chilly evening as Christmas tunes filled the air.

“We are all close in this neighborhood,” said Steve Garcelon, who is also one of the original homeowners along the lane.

He remembers the first time someone decorated

their house. The neighbor decided to put up lighted candy canes and then each year it got bigger and bigger. Soon his neighbors started joining him with their own decorations, and ever since, Candy Cane Lane and Lollipop Lane have become a Vacaville tradition.

“Young people want to move in here because of it,” Garcelon said. “It will keep going on for a long time.”

The lights usually remain up until New Year’s Day, but he says people have started taking them down the day after Christmas.

“There really is nowhere else like the

lane,” he said. “We all have a history here, and have known each other for years.”

All bundled up against the cold, John and Ali Thompson walked hand-in-hand down the sidewalk, enjoying the lights. They don’t live on either of the streets.

“This is our first year here,” John Thompson said.

They hadn’t heard of Candy Cane Lane and were surprised by all the lights.

“We just started walking and decided we wanted to see the whole thing,” Ali Thompson added.

power soared while high winds knocked power plants offline. Duke Energy Corp. is undertaking rolling outages in North Carolina.

Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP via Getty Images/TNS

A man helps an injured civilian after Russian shelling to Ukrainian city of Kherson, where five were killed and 20 injured, Saturday. Ukrainian President Volodymyr

Zelensky on Saturday blasted Russian “terror” after shelling left at least five dead and 20 injured in Kherson city, which Kyiv’s forces recaptured in November.

Susan Hiland/Daily Republic)

Band members from Yuppy Liberation Front came together to surprise homeowner Roulou Avila at her home on Candy Cane Lane, since she is undergoing treatment for cancer and can’t make it to their concerts this year.

Susan Hiland/Daily Republic

The Vacaville Veteran’s Hall Christmas Dinner had many children volunteering to help fill the containers for food delivery, Saturday.

Be sure to visit for future events

This week

THINGS TO DO

I Fairfield

7:30 p.m. Monday

‘Downtown for the Holidays’ Downtown Theatre, 1035 Texas St. https://www. downtown theatre.com.

I Suisun City

7 p.m. Thursday

Karaoke & Open Mic Marina Lounge, 700 Main St., Suite 106. www.marina loungesuisun.com.

6 p.m. Saturday

New Year’s Eve Black & Gold

Extravaganza Marina Lounge, 700 Main St., Suite 106. www.marina loungesuisun.com.

I Vacaville

10 p.m. Saturday New Year’s Eve Comedy Dance Gala Journey Downtown, 308 Main St. www.journeydown townvenue.com.

9 p.m. Friday

Dueling Pianos: James & Nick Makse Restaurant, 555 Main St. duelingpianovaca ville.com/events.

I Benicia

5:30 p.m. Thursday

Jim Funk The Rellik, 726 First St. www.therellik tavern.com.

9 p.m. Thursday

DJ Rue Hefner

The Rellik, 726 First St. www.therellik tavern.com.

4:30 p.m. Friday

5-0 Boyz and Wyldz

The Rellik, 726 First St. www.therellik tavern.com.

9 p.m. Friday

DJ Ross The Rellik, 726 First St. www.therellik tavern.com.

8 p.m. Saturday New Year’s Eve Bash with Strange Brew

The Rellik, 726 First St. www.therellik tavern.com.

I Vallejo

6 p.m. Saturday New Year’s Eve with Camp Jeff Band Empress Theatre, 330 Virginia St. www.empress theatre.org.

16 shows, movies and specials to watch this holiday season

bethoNie butleR THE WASHINGTON POST

Whether you live for the holidays or you’re more of a “bah, humbug” type, there are plenty of TV shows, movies and specials to help you get into the spirit – or avoid it completely.

DRNEWS@DAILYREPUBLIC.NET

FAIRFIELD — San Francisco’s

immersive Pink Floyd tribute House of Floyd will bring its concert and laser light show to the Downtown Theatre for a single performance in February.

Ticket are on sale for the show, scheduled at 8 p.m. Feb. 18.

Rather than simply replicating the iconic band’s recorded songs, House of Floyd focuses on the adventurous live arrangements and sonic explorations of their namesake, according to press materials for the show. Each performance is built around the jam-based interpretations and engulfing sound

tation that took the West End and Broadway by storm. Alisha Weir plays the title role in the feature film version, currently in theaters, which also stars Lashana Lynch (“No Time to Die”) as Miss Honey. Gather the kiddos for the melodic spin on a beloved children’s tale; stay for the energetic dance numbers – at least one of which has already gone viral. (Streams on Netflix)

2. ‘Wednesday’

Jenna Ortega (“You”) plays the morbid and sardonic daughter of Morticia and Gomez Addams in this series from Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, the duo that brought us “Smallville” and “The Shannara Chronicles.” In this Gen Z update, Wednesday is a Sartre-loving high school outcast who becomes determined to solve a string of murders; Christina Ricci has a recurring role in a nod to the O.G. live-action-film Wednesday. Teen gothdom has never looked cooler. (Note: This show might be scary for little kids; we recommend for preteens and up.) (Streams on Netflix)

3. ‘Mariah Carey: Merry Christmas to All!’

The superstar singer leans into her unofficial reputation as the “Queen of Christmas” in this holiday special, which features footage from recent concerts and will be available to stream following its broadcast premiere this week on CBS. (Streams on Paramount Plus)

4. ‘José Andrés and Family in Spain’

The philanthropic chef, known for restaurants around D.C. and other U.S. cities, explores the cuisine of his native Spain with his American-born daughters, Carlota, Inés and Lucía. Perfect for the foodies at your table.

(Streams on Discovery Plus starting Dec. 27)

5. ‘If These Walls Could Sing’

Director Mary McCartney, who spent hours of her childhood at Abbey Road Studios with her father Paul McCartney, takes a look at the iconic U.K. studio’s history across nine decades.

DAVIS — The John Natsoulas Gallery next month will present a selection of sculptures and prints from the 50-year career of the legendary artist Mark Bulwinkle, the Oakland-based innovator of graphically cut steel.

The exhibition will be open Jan. 11 to Feb. 26. A public reception with music and refreshments is scheduled from 7 to 9 p.m. Jan. 13.

Bulwinkle is known for his manic steel silhouettes of dog-faced flowers and perverse, joyful figures with electrified grins. His

artwork can be spotted across the Pacific coast, displayed in windows, overgrown gardens and at small businesses. Bulwinkle’s graphically cut steel propelled him into fame, influencing the creation of Burning Man in the 1980s and even leading him to reject an interview with Oprah in 1991.

However, lesser known but equally impressive is his work in diverse media: ceramics, silkscreen, papier-mache and even digital illustration.

“His mastery acquired from 100-hour work-

baRbaR a NavolaNic

FOR THE DAILY REPUBLIC

Courtesy photo

Mark Bulwinkle’s “The Future is Not Ours to See,” 1973. Industrial

synthetic enamel silkscreen, 20 x 30 inches.

James Devaney/The Washington Post

Mariah Carey and the Radio City Rockettes during CBS’s “Mariah Carey: Merry Christmas to All!”

Pedro Walter/Discovery Plus/The Washington Post

José Andrés and his daughters explore the cuisine of the famed chef’s native Spain in “José Andrés and Family in Spain.”

See Shows, Page

‘Matilda’ dances exuberantly onto screen, into your heart

Peter M arks THE WASHINGTON POST

Behold a Broadway musical that sings, dances and bedazzles so magnetically, it feels as if it were ordained for the screen by divine providence. “Roald Dahl’s Matilda: The Musical” certainly is divine, but the inspirational figures are all mortal: a director, Matthew Warchus; a star, Emma Thompson; and a cast of perpetually whirling child wonders who propel the story forward with kinetic enchantment.

“Matilda” was first a Dahl novel, then a 1996 movie, then a 2013 Broadway musical and now a movie musical. Audiences have seen countless times how this progression can devolve from one incarnation to the next, as if a property were subject to imaginative biodegrading. In this instance, the opposite pertains: “Matilda,” in select theaters now and streaming on Netflix beginning Christmas Day, explodes with an exhilarating pleasure in filmic transformation, in harnessing the strength of one medium and regenerating it freshly in another.

The movie reassembles key members of the stage version’s creative team, including book writer (now screenwriter) Dennis Kelly and composer Tim Minchin, under the guidance once again of Warchus, a Broadway and West End veteran. Their cinematic take is by some magnitude even more faithful to Dahl’s

dark vision of childhood terrors, as it unfolds a harsher depiction of the plight of Matilda (the astonishing Alisha Weir). And it counts even more pointedly than the stage adaptation did on our reflexive sympathy for children subjected to the dictatorial whims of cruel adults.

At the heart of it all is Thompson as heartless Agatha Trunchbull, authoritarian headmistress of Crunchem Hall, a primary school over which she presides with Olympian contempt for terrorized pupils she calls “maggots.” Thompson is a lover of elaborate dress-up – recall, please, “Nanny McPhee” – and here she’s bulked up and

uniformed like a totalitarian despot. Hers is a megalomaniacal tour de force that reaches its climax in the extraordinary “The Smell of Rebellion,” a musical rampage on a muddy obstacle course that passes for a grueling phys ed class.

Ellen Kane is the choreographer for this and other remarkable production numbers – she was Peter Darling’s choreography associate for Broadway – that have you marveling at what can be achieved with a legion of nimble tweeners. Think of “Oliver!” with 10 times the combustion. In songs such as the welcome-tohell “School Song” and “Bruce,” recounting a

penitential cake-eating challenge, the ensemble dances through the hallways and assembly rooms with dizzying élan.

“Matilda’s” guiding principle is that adults may indulge in self-satisfying fantasies about their little darlings: “My mommy says I’m a miracle,” sings the opening number, as cinematographer Tat Radcliffe pans over adorable newborns in their cribs. But once they’re old enough for school –well, maybe that’s when moms and dads should be paying closer attention. Crunchem Hall is “Nicholas Nickleby’s” Dotheboys Hall with an extra soupcon of sadism. (Although Miss

Trunchbull inflicts physical punishment that magically results in no lasting harm, I’d say the movie is not for youngsters who can’t yet distinguish between real and pretend.)

As opposed to J.K. Rowling’s Hogwarts, Crunchem Hall is a perverse sendup of the brutalities of the British school system. Matilda Wormwood’s home life is just as awful, as it is presided over by cartoonishly self-centered parents (played expertly by Stephen Graham and Andrea Riseborough) who are oblivious to what is apparent to the rest of us: that Matilda is a wondrous child with

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6. ‘Encanto at the Hollywood Bowl’

For families who want to end the year the way they started it – that is, playing “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” on a loop – this concert film transforms Los Angeles’s famed Hollywood Bowl into the magical casita Madrigal as the cast of the Disney film performs alongside a full orchestra. Lin Manuel-Miranda makes a special appearance. (Streams on Disney Plus starting Dec. 28)

WATCH WITH FRIENDS OR YOUR COOL COUSINS

7. ‘Nanny’

Aisha (Anna Diop), a Senegalese woman, arrives in the United States to work as a nanny for the child of a wealthy couple (Michelle Monaghan and Morgan Spector) in this horror film. But her attempt at making a life for herself and the young son she was forced to leave behind is plagued by a menacing presence. Screen veteran Leslie Uggams also stars. (Streams on Prime Video)

8. ‘The White Lotus’

Any family squabbles at the dinner table are sure to seem petty once you’ve taken in the second season of Mike White’s anthology about rich folks on vacation. This installment’s cast features Aubrey Plaza, Meghann Fahy, Theo James, Will Sharpe and – the only Season 1 actor to return as their (fan-favorite) character – Jennifer Coolidge. (Streams on HBO and HBO Max)

9. ‘Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery’

The second installment of Rian Johnson’s “Knives Out” franchise had a brief but successful run at the box office, and now it’s coming directly to you and yours. Daniel Craig reprises his role as worldfamous detective Benoit Blanc in this comedy about a murder mystery that unfolds at the whim of an enigmatic tech billionaire played by Edward Norton. The ensemble cast also features Janelle Monáe, Kate Hudson, Leslie Odom Jr. and Kathryn Hahn. (Streams on Netflix starting Dec. 23)

10. ‘1923’

The newest chapter of Taylor Sheridan’s “Yellowstone” franchise, which takes place before the events of the flagship series but after “1883,” features Helen Mirren and Harrison Ford as the matriarch and patriarch of the Dutton family. (Streams on Paramount Plus)

11. ‘The Recruit’

Noah Centineo, internet boyfriend of yore, steps into a new role in this thriller about a green CIA lawyer who finds himself embroiled in a dangerous morass of international politics. (Streams on Netflix)

12. ‘The Best Man: The Final Chapters’

The longtime friends at the heart of Malcolm D. Lee’s beloved directorial debut reunite once again as longtime bachelor Quentin (Terrence Howard) prepares to get married. Unlike “The Best Man” and its 2013 holiday-themed sequel, “The Final Chapters” unfolds on the small screen, giving more narrative space to the women in the friend group: Jordan (Nia Long), Candace (Regina Hall), Robyn (Sanaa Lathan) and the perpetually underdeveloped Shelby (Melissa De Sousa), who gets more than a villain arc this time around. (Streams on Peacock)

WATCH ALONE

13. ‘Emily in Paris’

The third season of this guilty pleasure finds our obnoxiously American heroine (Lily Collins) navigating a classic love triangle with feelings for both Gabriel (Lucas Bravo), who is beautiful but spoken-for, and the dapper,

overconfident Alfie (Lucien Laviscount). She faces a similarly vexing problem as she works up the nerve to tell her longtime boss and mentor (Kate Walsh) that she has been poached by the stylish and cynical Sylvie (Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu) and plans to stay in Paris. (Streams on Netflix)

14. ‘Call Me Miss Cleo’

This documentary peers into the mysterious life of the late Youree Dell Harris, who became a household name as TV psychic Miss Cleo in the late ‘90s and early aughts thanks to memorable late-night infomercials that implored viewers to call her for free readings. The 90-minute film unpacks Harris’s battle – for both profits and her identity – against the network that deceptively advertised her services. (Streams on HBO Max)

15. ‘Lizzo: Live in Concert’

This New Year’s Eve concert spectacular features the twerking, flute-playing singer as she performs alongside her band and special guests including Cardi B, SZA and Missy Elliott. (Streams on HBO Max starting Dec. 31)

16. ‘Kaleidoscope’

Netflix changed the way we watch TV, and now the streamer is attempting to do it again with this immersive limited series about a daring heist that will start at different points in the story for everyone who views it. The thriller’s eight episodes aren’t numbered, but rather identified by color. An all-star cast featuring Giancarlo Esposito, Rufus Sewell and Paz Vega inspires hope that this will be more than just a gimmick. (Streams on Netflix starting Jan. 1)

weeks as a ship welder for Bethlehem Steel was important to the development of his cut steel works, but equally key was his early training as a skilled printmaker and graphic artist,” according to an announcement for the show.

Bulwinkle received a master of fine arts degree in printmaking from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1974, making what is described in the announcement as “hundreds of fabulously intricate industrial enamel silkscreens and woodcuts.” Bulwinkle in these early years also learned ceramic slipcasting techniques from renowned trompe l’oeil artist Richard Shaw.

“This retrospective exhibition showcases Bulwinkle’s mastery of color and form in both two and three dimensions throughout the last 50 decades, tracing the development of his art

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effects and visuals that made Pink Floyd’s live sets so popular.

“House of Floyd always delivers serious musical magic starting with an amazing group of stellar musicians, legendary film and tape effects, stereo surround sound mixing, atmospheric lighting, eye catching laser light show, lots of fog and the incred-

supernatural gifts and brain power to spare. That is left to be discovered by the story’s most benevolent character: Matilda’s schoolteacher Miss Honey, embodied with heart-melting wholesomeness by Lashana Lynch.

The Wormwoods have been stripped in the film version of most of their singing responsibilities – there was no way, apparently, to make one of the musical’s funniest songs, Mr. Wormwood’s audience-participation “Telly,” work for the screen, and Matilda’s brother Michael has been cut out entirely. Young Weir’s luminous presence more than compensates for anything that has been subtracted. Her endearing Matilda is equal parts dreamer and rebel, attributes documented brightly in the NeccoWafer-colored world conjured by production designers David Hindle and Christian Huband.

The other besieged children gallivant just as vivaciously, among them Charlie Hodson-Prior as Bruce, Winter JarrettGlasspool as Amanda and Rei Yamauchi Fulker as Lavender. When a show opens up so buoyantly for the cameras, it is most definitely a happy holiday.

through diverse materials and revealing the stories embedded in his work,” according to the announcement. The show will include a selection of his woodcuts and screen prints, including several prints from his time at the San Francisco Art Institute. Bulwinkle’s “flamboyant ceramic works” from graduate school will also be featured, as well as papier-mache works that once decorated the walls of his Manilla St. House, “a towering steel assemblage sculpture” that was built around a townhouse and became a landmark in Oakland from 1975-1991.

Recent cut steel works painted with colorful enamel will also be featured, which are often imitated but are, according to the announcement, “unmistakably Bulwinkle’s.”

The John Natsoulas Gallery is located at 521 1st St., Davis.

For more information, visit https://www.natsou las.com/, send an email to art@natsoulas.com or call 530-756-3938.

ible hypnotic music of Pink Floyd,” according to press materials.

This concert at the Downtown Theatre will have guests fully immersed in the Pink Floyd experience from start to finish.

The show, which is being organized by Frazier Trager Presents, sold out last year. The Downtown Theatre is located at 1035 Texas St. in downtown Fairfield.

For tickets or more information, visit https:// ftpresents.com/events/ house-of-floyd-concert.

shows(Streams on Disney Plus)

From

John Wilson/Netflix/The Washington Post

From left: Kate Hudson as Birdie, Jessica Henwick as Peg, daniel Craig as detective Benoit Blanc and Leslie odom Jr. as Lionel in netflix’s “Glass onion: A Knives out Mystery.”

Dan Smith/Netflix/The Washington Post

emma Thompson, left, and Alisha Weir in “roald dahl’s Matilda: The Musical.”

Far from home, Ukrainian refugees celebrate first Christmas since invasion

Tribune ConTenT AgenCy

LOS ANGELES — Mykhailo

Hrabymskyi’s last Christmas in Western Ukraine was like the 16 that came before it. His family gathered for the traditional feast of 12 dishes. They went caroling. They attended church.

But this Christmas, 10 months after Russia invaded Ukraine, his family is scattered across the globe. His mother and younger sister are in London. His father is in Denmark. His grandma is alone in their small town, Dobrotvir, which was bombed two weeks ago by Russian forces.

“I have no relatives here, I have no family,” said the 19-year-old Glendale Community College student.

Hrabymskyi and his family are among the millions of Ukrainians displaced by the Russian invasion and subsequent war. While nearly 8 million have found refuge in other European countries, the United States has welcomed more than 100,000 Ukrainians this year.

Los Angeles is one of the top metro areas where Americans have applied to sponsor Ukrainians, according to a CBS analysis of Department of Home-

land Security data. California had the third most applications –trailing New York and Illinois. All have significant Ukrainian American populations.

Hrabymskyi left Ukraine on a basketball scholarship a few months before the war started.

His goals were to learn English and experience a new culture for a year before return ing home to pursue his dream of studying computer science at a university in Lviv. It’s a city, he said, where he feels peace unlike anywhere else, a city that “feels like home.”

Last December, he videoconferenced into his family’s festivities. “They were all gathered together,” he said, “and I was there mentally.”

He was in the L.A. area when the war started, and, while “nothing changed around me, but a lot of things changed inside of me.” He said he felt an “emotional explosion.”

“It’s just that feeling that you see things and you don’t believe it first,” he said. “And then everything starts coming at you. Like, you know, like waves from like, I don’t know, just your thoughts and everything. And you’ve been speechless. You don’t, you

don’t understand what’s going on and be like, your chest is like, you know, squeezing, you cannot breathe.”

He realized he would have to stay in L.A. and would have no place to live after graduation. So he sought out the Ukrainian American community in Los Angeles and began attending Nativity of Blessed Virgin Mary Ukrainian Catholic Church in Little Armenia. The church

This year he wants to “be surrounded by Ukrainians and Ukrainian energy,” to sing songs and have dinner with people

And he is trying to stay positive for the future. “I hope for war to end as soon as possible and I will be able to go home again and experience all of the things I felt before and I didn’t

The current wave of displaced Ukrainians is the fifth to immigrate to the United States. The first was in the late 1800’s until the start of World War I. Since then, the Ukrainian American community has made an effort to build Ukrainian culture, infrastructure and identity in the U.S.

For many Ukrainian Christians, this year’s Christmas will be the first spent far away from loved ones and the traditions they know.

For photographer Olenka Kotyk, her grandmother’s fish dishes will be most missed as she prepares for her first Christmas outside Ukraine. But, kutia, a sweet pudding, is the curtainraiser for the 12-dish Christmas

Eve feast and a must-have at her family’s table.

“I think every family in Ukraine has their own recipe,” she told The Times in New York. Hers is made of boiled wheat, poppy seeds, raisins, honey and dried apricots. It is served after her grandmother has prayed, thanking God and remembering relatives who have died.

Kotyk, 28, who came to the U.S. in August, recalled childhood Christmases where together with her brother and some friends, they would go house to house to sing carols, especially “Shchedryk,” the original Ukrainian version of the American classic “Carol of the Bells.”

This year, the holidays and the war – which has forced her to be far from home – have caused her to be more appreciative of family and time spent together in a way she hadn’t been before.

“I don’t remember a Christmas when we were not together,” Kotyk said. “I just want to be with them next year . . . Before this war, I did not realize that that was so important for me.”

863-0581

members have helped build a supportive community for

Dania Maxwell/Los Angeles Times/TNS Mykhailo Hrabymskyi, a 19-yearold refugee from Ukraine, is in the U.S without family, studying at Glendale Community College.

Wishing a Merry Christmas to all of my readers

Dear Readers:

Wishing you and your loved ones a very Merry Christmas.

“Christmas Bells” by Henry Wadsworth

Longfellow, 1863

I heard the bells on Christmas Day

Their old, familiar carols play, And wild and sweet

The words repeat Of peace on earth, goodwill to men!

And thought how, as the day had come, The belfries of all Christendom

Had rolled along The unbroken song Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Till ringing, singing on its way, The world revolved from night to day, A voice, a chime, A chant sublime

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Then from each black, accursed mouth

The cannon thundered in the South, And with the sound The carols drowned Of peace on earth, goodwill to men!

Horoscopes

by Holiday Mathis

Today’s birthday

The year is rich in fortunate endeavors and strange, happy coincidences. You’ll build on a tradition, repeating the steps that have worked in the past and adding embellishments to make it your own. More highlights: animal interactions, a beautiful balance of work and play, and passion ignited in a big purposeful challenge. Scorpio and Gemini adore you. Your lucky numbers are: 4, 20, 1, 10 and 33.

ARIES (March 21-April 19). Things have to be moving to get moving; momentum is working for you. You are poetry in motion as you try what’s new, novel and interesting. You’ll land on just the solution you need or the improvement you wish for.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20). You delight in giving, especially in ways that will make a difference to others. You’ll contribute usefully and frivolously, too, realizing that impractical joys can sometimes make the biggest difference of all.

GEMINI (May 21-June 21). When in doubt, take the casual route. Love and connection flow from the relaxed atmosphere you nurture. The effort to translate your feelings into words will land lovely and be more meaningful than you could know.

CANCER (June 22-July 22). You make merriment the priority and self-consciousness melts away. You join in the fun without missing a beat. Life seems to be happening through you instead of to you. First meetings will be tinged with magic.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22). You have wide range and the ability to give what’s needed to fit and elevate what’s going on around you. While you’re big-hearted and sensitive to what everyone is feeling, you’re also very much in charge of your own emotional weather.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22). Your day will be filled with beauty and levity. Laughter is contagious even with people who don’t share your sense of humor. Love, friendship and togetherness make things funny that wouldn’t otherwise be.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 23). Most people believe they come across friendlier than they actually do, but not you. You don’t even realize the warmth you radiate until after someone has already fallen in love with your smile.

SCORPIO (Oct. 24-Nov. 21). Maybe you’ll do what’s on the plan, and maybe you won’t, but just having a plan somehow makes the day magical. Your easygoing style gives everyone peace of mind.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21). To celebrate with loved ones is the best gift of all. Simple choices have meaning – traditions honored, sweet words exchanged, the acknowledgment of shared histories and hopes for the shared futures.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19). Your playfulness is an offer others pick up on and run with. Soon, you’ve all created something that’s bigger than the sum of its parts. You’ve a talent for inclusion and will land on the easy way of bringing everyone in.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18). You’re a dreamer with a direction, heading into your vision for the day ready to execute the practical action necessary to make it happen. What you weren’t counting on is all the love and help you get to bring it together.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20). Since experience happens in each person’s mind, not possible to totally create experiences for others, you’ll do as much as you can, setting elements in place and then watching as merriment unfolds before and inside you.

CELEBRITY PROFILES: In an act of auspicious timing, Robert Ripley published his first “Believe it or Not!” cartoon in 1918 within days of his solar return. The traveler, cartoonist, entrepreneur and amateur anthropologist shared his wonder-filled worldview through his exploration of little-known facts, impressive records, exotic customs and other oddities. Now, dozens of attractions around the world uphold the traditions of this Capricorn explorer – a Christmas baby born when Venus was in Sagittarius, the sign of adventures.

Write Holiday Mathis at HolidayMathis.com.

It was as if an earthquake rent

The hearth-stones of a continent, And made forlorn

The households born Of peace on earth, goodwill to men!

And in despair I bowed my head;

The Wrong shall fail, The Right prevail, With peace on earth, goodwill to men.”

“Snow-flakes” by Henry Wadsworth

Longfellow, 1893

Out of the bosom of the Air, Out of the cloud-folds of her

divine expression, Even as the troubled heart doth make

In the white countenance confession, The troubled sky reveals The grief it feels. This is the poem of the air, Slowly in silent sylla-

Healing-centered engagement available in Fairfield-Suisun School District

Zarena Brown FOR THE DAILY REPUBLIC

Are you trauma-informed?

Any age is susceptible to trauma. Abuse and neglect, racism, discrimination and cultural bias can result in experiences of trauma whether from solitary incidents or from long-term suffering. Trauma can also appear interpersonally, generationally, systemically and/ or historically rooted in communities.

Trauma-informed care is a set of ideas that guide how we approach serious injury on young people’s mental, physical and emotional health. Trauma-informed care treats the complete person, not just symptoms or behaviors.

HCE agenda in the school district

Parents, community members, educators and students of the Fairfield-Suisun School District prioritized social-emotional assistance in the local control and accountability plan, or LCAP. To achieve this goal, the district sought and won a $2 million grant from the California Department of Education to establish social-emotional supports and activities for students and staff.

Why HCE?

Healing-centered engagement encompasses acknowledging harm and identifying ways to move past it and into resilience. It moves us away from harm and punitive practices to the restoration of our well-being.

The school district is located within one of the most diverse counties in the Bay Area. Touro, as a Jewish institution of higher learning, is responsible for creating servant leaders in teaching and administrative staff who work in their communities to improve the lives of all. As Touro serves the Bay Area, there are many Touro students, including myself, who serve Bay Area schools and beyond, such as those in the Fairfield-Suisun School District, which is identified as one of the most diverse districts within one of the most diverse counties in the state.

As we continue with the social justice pursuits of diversity, equity and inclusion, the mindset of Kavod –showing respect and honor – embodies the LCAP goals identified for school district and the CARMA principles that Dr. Shawn Ginwright defines.

We cannot fail to examine ourselves and how we show up in the world – and in this case – our classrooms, to best serve our communities’ youth so they may flourish and have a hand in creating a better world for us all.

Healing-centered engagement: Moving beyond traumainformed practices

Moving past trauma-informed care, a healing-centered practitioner focuses on introspection to promote healing from the inside out. Using an assets-based perspective, healing-centered engagement embodies the concept of servant leadership.

Created by Ginwright, HCE is defined

as a holistic healing strategy that encompasses culture, spirituality, civic action and community healing. Instead of perceiving trauma as an individual experience, which fosters a deficit attitude, a healing-centered approach highlights how trauma and recovery are felt collectively.

Healing-centered engagement broadens our understanding of trauma responses and gives a more comprehensive approach to empowering well-being.

Ginwright further identifies the five CARMA principles, which are the driving force behind HCE:

Culture: The values and norms that connect us to a shared identity.

Agency: The individual and collective power to act, create and change personal conditions and external systems.

Relationships: The capacity to create, sustain and grow healthy connections with others.

Meaning: The profound discovery of who we are, why we are and what purpose we were born to serve.

Aspiration: The capacity to imagine, set and accomplish goals for personal and collective livelihood and advancement. The exploration of possibilities for our lives and the process of accomplishing goals for personal and collective livelihood.

Zarena Brown, MEd. MAEd, is a doctoral candidate at Touro University California in the Graduate School of Education. Touro University California is a partner of Solano Public Health.

Annie Lane Dear Annie

Keira Burton/Pexels

Healing-centered engagement encompasses acknowledging harm from trauma and identifying ways to move past it.

49ers top Commanders for 8th straight win

caM inM an BAY AREA NEWS GROUP

SANTA CLARA — If Nick Bosa wins the NFL’s Defensive Player of the Year award, a fourth-quarter play on Christmas Eve is all the evidence voters need, and maybe it could sway some to consider him the league’s most valuable player.

The 49ers won 37-20 win Saturday, but that eighth straight victory wasn’t looking like a lock, not until Bosa delivered a

fumble-forcing sack with 14 minutes to go.

It was Bosa’s second sack of the game, it raised his NFL lead to 17 1/2 on the season, and it created a fumble that Jordan Willis recovered at the Washington Commanders’ 11-yard line.

The 49ers (11-4) converted that takeaway into just a field goal, but Bosa’s play sent an emphatic message that this playoff run remains fueled by the NFL’s most suffocating defense.

The 49ers’ playoff picture has them still as the NFC’s No. 3-seed, seeing how the Minnesota Vikings (12-3) pulled out a 27-24 home win over the New York Giants (8-61). Next up for the NFC West-champion 49ers is their debut in Las Vegas against the Raiders on New Year’s Day, then it’s back home to close the regular season against the Arizona Cardinals.

Explosive plays on offense got the 49ers their touchdowns, starting

with Ray-Ray McCloud’s 71-yard, end-around run in the first half, and followed by George Kittle’s touchdowns on 34- and 33-yard receptions in the third quarter. Robbie Gould went 3-for-3 on field-goal attempts in the fourth quarter to pad the lead.

Kittle, coming off a twotouchdown effort in last game’s division-clinching win at Seattle, finished with 120 yards on six catches, the final of which was a 10-yard, fourth-down conversion to set up Christian

McCaffrey’s 1-yard touchdown run with 2:13 left.

Those were easily enough points to outlast the playoff-contending Commanders (7-7-1). Even after Carson Wentz threw a fourth-quarter touchdown pass with 5:25 left, Bosa tackled Wentz on an ensuing twopoint conversion attempt; it didn’t qualify as a sack because it was not a play from scrimmage.

Brock Purdy improved to 3-0 as the 49ers’ starting quarterback, completing

15-of-22 for 234 yards, with two touchdown and an interception (that Jauan Jennings juggled into the air). The 49ers’ run game struggled to find success with Christian McCaffrey (15 carries, 46 yards) and Ty DavisPrice, whose nine carries (30 yards) were his first in two months; Jordan Mason (hamstring) was restricted to special-teams duty.

Bosa wasn’t the only defensive star, of course, but he stood out among the rest.

Rodriguez edge rusher Batres signed by Valparaiso

M att Miller MMILLER@DAILYREPUBLIC.NET

FAIRFIELD — What does Rodriguez High School senior Gabriel Batres get for an incredible 2022 season on the football field? How about a scholarship to Valparaiso University and all the steaks he can eat.

Area athletes turn in performances noticed throughout state, US, world

M att Miller MMILLER@DAILYREPUBLIC.NET

FAIRFIELD — 2022 was a great year for individual achievements throughout northern Solano County, on the track, on the mound, in the field of play and much more.

The year’s best teams will be honored next week. Today is time to toast those who overcame their own obstacles, had to set their own agendas and push themselves to ultimate achievement.

Here’s a look at some of the very best individual athletic achievements this year:

Luis Grijalva

The Fairfield native and Armijo High graduate ran for Guatemala and finished an amazing fourth overall in the men’s 5,000 meters at the World Track and Field Championships in Eugene, Oregon, in July. Grijalva kept pace with leaders throughout the race. He then displayed a powerful kick in the final stretch to record a time of 13 minutes, 10.44 seconds.

Tony Gonsolin

The Vacaville High School graduate had a remarkable year on the mound for the Los Angeles Dodgers. The right-hander went 16-1 with a 2.14 ERA over 24 starts in a personal-high 130.1 innings. He struck out 119 batters. Though a right forearm strain landed him on the injured list for a few weeks late in the year, he was still among the NL leaders, pitched in the All-Star Game at Dodger Stadium, and got work in the National League Division Series.

Robyn Stevens

The Vacaville High

graduate didn’t quite hit the top-20 goal she was aiming for, but she did better her Olympic finish of 2021 by coming in 24th overall in the women’s 20K race walk at the World Championships.

The 39-year-old Vacaville native was the top American finisher and completed the course around Eugene in 1 hour, 36.16 minutes.

Jaden Dumdumaya

The Fairfield native won the Drive, Chip and Putt Nationals at Augusta National in Georgia in the boys 14-15 age division in April. He finished sixth in May at the CIF State Boys High School Golf Championship at the San Gabriel

Country Club with a 1-under round of 70 as his school, De La Salle, won the team title by 11 strokes. Dumdumaya was also the youngest winner in the 98-year history of the California State Fair Amateur Championship at 16 years old in June.

Connor Ard

The Solano Community College tennis player was named the recipient of an International Tennis Association Arthur Ashe Jr. Leadership and Sportsmanship Award. Outstanding student-athletes in all five divisions – from NCAA Division I to junior college – are honored

each year for exhibiting outstanding sportsmanship and leadership, as well as scholastic, extracurricular and tennis achievements. The award dates back to 1982 and is named in honor of the late pioneer and tennis great.

Jeff Wilson

Wilson added to his collection of amateur golf medals at The Kittansett Club in Marion, Massachusetts, shooting consecutive 1-under-par 70 to share medalist honors in the 67th U.S. Senior Amateur Championship in August. Wilson, 59, of Fairfield, posted a 36-hole total of 2-under 140. He tied first-round leader Miles McConnell, 56, of Tampa, Florida, for the top spot.

Aaron Beverly

The Armijo graduate now has a friend in Tiger Woods. The 15-time major winner and tournament host announced Beverly as the recipient of the Charlie Sifford Memorial Exemption into the 2022 Genesis Invitational. Beverly, the 2014 NCGA Amateur runner-up and two-time Fairfield City Amateur Champion (2013-14) joined the 120-PGA player field at The Riviera Country Club in February.

Alan Sanchez

The return to the ring for the Fairfield native was a success in November as he earned a 10-round unanimous decision at Cache Creek Resort in Brooks against undefeated Saul Bustos of Los Angeles. The 31-year-old boxer was back in action after a 17-month layoff. He earned the WBA Fedecentro Title thanks to the win and improved his

Batres signed a national letter-of-intent to the NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision program in Indiana this week. His statistics as a defensive end are eye-popping and drew notice from 12 different schools. He and the Valparaiso coaching staff are hoping to get his current 200 pounds up to 230 by his sophomore season.

“I’m definitely going to have to put on more weight,” Batres said. “They said my talent level is really good, but I think I was the smallest defensive lineman they recruited.”

Rodriguez head coach Myles King and staff gave Batres heavy play at defensive end this year and he excelled. He recorded the second

most sacks (19) in California and was the state leader in tackles for loss (42). Batres finished with 80 total tackles (46 solo, 34 assists) and had 16 catches for 192 yards and six touchdowns on offense.

Batres was the coLineman of the Year in the Monticello Empire League. He was also second-team, all-Sac Joaquin Section by MaxPreps.com and a member of the Daily Republic’s All-Region Team.

“I’ve always been good at getting to the quarterback,” Batres said. “This year, I think I just got better at getting tackles for losses. I was able to play my defensive position smarter and get off the ball quicker.”

Batres feels Valparaiso is a school on the rise and he joined a December recruiting class of eight for head coach Landon Fox, who put a heavy emphasis on continuing to develop the team’s offensive and defensive fronts.

Fox said of Batres in a press release: “He’s a

Report: Mets concerned with Correa’s health, just like Giants

laurence MiedeM a BAY AREA NEWS GROUP

It appears the Giants aren’t alone in having enough questions about Carlos Correa’s health history to hit pause before finalizing a massive contract with the star shortstop.

We’ll just have to wait and see if the Mets ultimately follow through.

Correa’s recent physical exam for the Mets has “raised concerns”, according to a report Saturday morning from Ken Rosenthal and Dan Hayes of The Athletic.

According to the report, the Mets may have issues with Correa’s surgically repaired lower right leg. That would be the same issue that reportedly caused the Giants to back away from the $350 million, 13-year deal they had agreed to with Correa on Dec. 13. That set off a chain of events that included a hasty cancellation of Correa’s introductory news conference with

the Giants on Tuesday morning and the door opening for the Mets to reach an agreement on a $315 million, 12-year deal with the former Houston Astros star.

It also opened the Giants up to massive criticism and fan backlash for failing to complete the deal in an offseason that already had seen them finish runnerup to Yankees star Aaron Judge.

The Giants’ only public comment on the collapse of the Correa deal was a statement from Farhan Zaidi, the team’s president of baseball operations, who on Tuesday said. “While we are prohibited from disclosing confidential medical information, as Scott Boras stated publicly, there was a difference of opinion over the results of Carlos’ physical examination. We wish Carlos the best.”

Boras, Correa’s agent, on Wednesday told

Courtesy Photo/Northern Arizona Athletics (2021)

Armijo High graduate Luis Grijalva of Northern Arizona University, third from right, ran in the men’s 5000-meter

race during the NCAA Track and Field Championships at Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon, June 11, 2021.

Wally Skalij/Los Angeles Times/TNS file

Los Angeles Dodgers starting pitcher Tony Gonsolin pitches in Game 3 of the NLDS against the San Diego Padres at Petco Park, Oct. 14.

Tribune Content Agency file (2021)

Robyn Stevens leads the pack in the women’s 20K Race

Walk in downtown Springfield during the Olympic Track and Field Trials in 2021.

Sunday’s TV sports

Basketball College Men

• DePaul vs. Creighton, 2, 40, 1:30 p.m.

• Diamond Head Classic, Third-Place Game, ESPN2, 3:30 p.m.

• Diamond HeadClassic, Championship, ESPN, 6 p.m.

NBA

• Philadelphia vs. N.Y. Knicks, 7, 10, ESPN, 9 a.m.

• L.A. Lakers vs. Dallas, 7, 10, ESPN, 11:30 a.m.

• Milwaukee vs. Boston, 7, 10, ESPN, 2 p.m.

• Memphis vs. Golden State, 7, 10, ESPN, 5 p.m.

• Phoenix vs. Denver, 7, 10, ESPN, 7:30 p.m.

Football

NFL

• Green Bay vs. Miami, 2, 40, 10 a.m.

• Denver vs. L.A. Rams, 5, 13, Nickelodeon, 1:30 p.m.

• Tampa Bay vs. Arizona, 3, 5:15 p.m.

16 points and Isiah Dixon added 14. Nigel Rogers and Dixon had seven rebounds apiece.

BASKETBALL

really good edge rusher and has the ability to get off the ball and create havoc in the backfield. He can create tackles for losses with his movement.”

Batres committed to the school four days after making a visit to the Indiana campus. He said what sold him was the interaction with the coaching staff.

“I like how honest and open they were with me,” Batres said. “A lot of coaches will sell you on fake dreams.”

Batres is the second senior member of the 2022 Rodriguez football team to sign a national letter-of-intent. Leroy Bryant signed with the University of Washington.

Boys Basketball Wood nets victory against Napa

VACAVILLE — The Will C. Wood High School boys basketball team picked up a 53-40 win Thursday over Napa.

Jayden Hamilton-Holland led the Wildcats with

Correa

reporters in New York that the Giants were still interested in working something out as of Tuesday morning.

“I said, ‘How much time do you need?’ They set the time, they told me that they needed – 1 o’clock they would let us know,” Boras said. “Then we received notice from them that they wanted to continue to talk and that they needed more time. But at that point in time, I told them I had to have a decision whether they were going to honor

Wood pulled away in the game on the strength of a 15-8 run in the second quarter and a 15-9 edge in the final period.

“We played a really good defensive game but we were sloppy on offense,” Wood head coach Mark Wudel said in an email. “We have some things to work on over the winter break.”

The Wildcats improved to 8-4.

Vacaville Christian earns tourney win

VACAVILLE — The Vacaville Christian High School boys basketball team closed out the Berean Christian tournament in Walnut Creek Thursday with a 55-48 win over AIMS College Prep of Oakland.

Garrett Kuch had 16 points and 11 rebounds for the Falcons. Landen Graves also had 16 points and Brian Laxamana added 10.

Vacaville Christian held on for the win in the second half after a 30-19 lead at halftime. The Falcons went 2-1 in the tournament and improved their overall mark to 9-3.

their letter of agreement that we had reached. And they said at that point in time they needed more information, they needed more discussion. They wanted to continue to talk but at this time they couldn’t go forward. And then I advised them that I had to pursue alternative measures on behalf of Carlos with other teams.”

During that session with reporters, Boras also said of Correa’s health, “There is no current issue with Carlos’ health whatsoever. There’s been a lot of discussion about backs and ankles. There’s nothing about him that is currently any form of medical issue.”

Areain Saturday’s finals in 24.84 seconds.

Warriors will likely be without Curry for at least 2 more weeks

M adeline K enney BAY AREA NEWS GROUP

SAN FRANCISCO —

The Warriors won’t have Stephen Curry for at least two more weeks – and most likely even longer –as he continues to nurse a shoulder injury.

While a recent reevaluation by the team’s medical staff found Curry was making “good progress” in his recovery from a partial dislocation of his left shoulder, coach Steve Kerr said Saturday that the Warriors superstar is “still a ways away from playing in a game.”

Curry, 34, injured his non-dominant shoulder while trying to strip the ball from Pacers big man Jalen Smith in a Dec. 14 loss. Curry has since been able to do some work in the weight room and put up shots Friday and Saturday morning, according to Kerr.

“Everything seems

to be going pretty smoothly,” Kerr said of Curry’s recovery.

But Curry is still not near being ready to return to practice. He’ll be re-assessed in two weeks, meaning another update should come around Jan. 7. The Warriors have seven games from now until then, including their Christmas Day clash against the

Memphis Grizzlies.

Andrew Wiggins (strained thigh muscle) and JaMychal Green (health and safety protocols) will also be shelved for that 2022 Western Conference semifinals rematch Sunday. Meanwhile, Donte DiVincenzo is expected to be back in the Warriors’ rotation for the opener of their eightgame homestand after

missing back-to-back games in New York with a major head cold. He said he’s feeling better, though still dealing with some lingering congestion and pressure in his head. He doesn’t think that’ll impede his performance.

“I’m fine, I’m going to play tomorrow,” DiVincenzo said. “It’s gonna be a grind, but it’s what we get paid the big bucks for.”

Curry being out for at least another two weeks doesn’t come as a surprise but it’s still a massive blow for a team that has struggled to string together more than three consecutive wins – something it’s done only once this season.

Curry had been the Warriors’ lone lifeline for the first two months of the season before he went down last week with his shoulder injury. He was averaging a team-high 30 points while shooting 50% from the field.

From Page B6

record to 22-5-1.

Mikelia Strong

The 200-meter dash isn’t her best event, but it’s the one in which the Fairfield High senior reached the finals at the CIF State Track and Field Championships at Buchanan High in June. Strong qualified ninth in the trials and wound up placing eighth

Nikki Chindavong

The Rodriguez High School senior tied for 11th overall with a 4-over-par 75 at the California Interscholastic Federation State Girls Golf Championship at the San Gabriel Country Club in November. Chindavong birdied the par-5 17th hole, which measured 452 yards, and had 13 pars. She later signed a national letter-ofintent at the University of Nevada, Reno.

Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group/TNS file

Stephen Curry walks off the floor after the Warriors’ 123-107 win against the Boston Celtics at Chase Center in San Francisco, Dec. 10.

Irecently interviewed UFC Executive Fitness Director Brandon Garcia for a television show called “Focus on Health and Fitness for 2023,” which will air on community access television.

Coach Brandon, a veteran fitness instructor who helps people of all ages and backgrounds, shed light on nutrition, lifestyle and exercise. He covered a variety of exercise options for those looking to improve their health. New Year’s resolutions require commitment. Coaches inspire us, but they cannot shoulder our burdens.

I was surprised in researching this subject to learn there is a Wikipedia page devoted to New Year’s resolutions.

The concept of changing one’s behavior, to maximize desired traits and minimize what is unhealthy or harmful, may find its roots in various religious and cultural traditions.

The need to pay off debts and return borrowed objects is an example of traditions dating back to ancient Babylon. The Romans prayed to the god Janus, promising to improve themselves. It is not surprising the first month of the new year became known as January. The Jewish tradition of the High Holidays, including Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, incorporates self-examination for any wrongdoings and looking for or giving forgiveness. The Christian tradition reveals similarities. During the Dark Ages, knights took a “Peacock

Vow,” pledging to continue to uphold their chivalrous traditions. Eastern and Western cultures alike often manifest similar general outlooks, about making fresh starts annually. With respect to medical issues, how successful are people in making radical lifestyle changes as a new year dawns? The available data are not encouraging. Although nearly half of Americans pledge to exercise more, quit smoking, drink less or otherwise improve their health, according to the American Medical Association, the success rates are poor. A British study showed about nine out of 10 people in that nation did not achieve their goals, although about half made their commitments with subjective confidence of success. Those who went after incremental success, such as losing a certain amount of weight per month, did better than those with more amorphous goals, like getting in shape or losing weight.

The top 10 resolutions, according to online sources, are to exercise more, lose weight, get organized, learn a new skill, live life to the fullest, save money, quit smoking, spend time with family and friends, travel more and read more. Those are all admirable lifestyle goals, largely health related. Why, then, do we often fall short?

Lack of time, loss of enthusiasm and sundry excuses may be cited after a few weeks.

The Cleveland Clinic webpage offers guid-

ance on how to improve our health as the new year dawns. For example, “Being specific, yet flexible.” Such expert sources note you do not change years of ingrained activities as easily as turning on or off an electric switch. Therefore, you might focus on starting a behavior, such as increasing your dietary intake of fruits or vegetables. The idea is to foster realistic goals, with emphasis on concrete steps. If you have an obstacle, such as pain with exercise or lack of time, there may be solutions. Ask for help. With regard to exercise, I suggest “start low and go slow.” Collaborating with friends, using reminders and keeping a journal are all useful strategies.

Years ago, I attended

a lecture by a tobacco researcher who suggested would-be quitters change cigarette brands prior to quitting. He cited the addictive impact of additives. That was news to me, though an intriguing idea. There are formal programs and medications which may help a person quit smoking. Mark Twain famously quipped, “Giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world. I know because I’ve done it thousands of times.”

Scott T. Anderson, M.D. (standerson@ucdavis. edu), is a clinical professor at the University of California, Davis Medical School. This column is informational and does not constitute medical advice.

7 snacks children around the world leave for Santa

Tribune ConTenT AgenCy

Children in the United States bake cookies for Santa and leave them out with a glass of milk on Christmas Eve. Some kids even leave carrots for Santa’s reindeer.

In other parts of the world, however, Santa’s beverages are a bit harder.

Here are Christmas traditions for seven countries:

United States

Although most people put out cookies and milk for Santa, some healthconscious families prefer to leave celery or a more low-calorie treat. Lucky reindeer will also get a carrot or two.

Australia

When it’s cold in the States, it’s hot in Australia. The Weather Channel predicts a high of 83 degrees in Sydney on Christmas Day. That’s why Santa is treated to a cold glass of beer to help wash down his cookies.

Ireland

Beer is also left by Irish kids, but not just any beer. In Ireland, it has to be a pint of Guinness. You’ll also find no cookies here. Santa can

find a mince pie near the tree instead.

Great Britain

Santa can fill up on mince pies in Britain, too, but he’ll enjoy it with a glass of sherry to warm him up.

Argentina

Christmas Eve in Argentina is a time for fireworks and globos, paper balloons that are lighted from within and float. Kids don’t open presents until January 6, which is Three Kings Day. They leave out hay and water for the Magi’s horses – that’s right, horses.

The Netherlands

Kids in Denmark, Belgium and the Netherlands also believe Santa’s sleigh is pulled by horses, so they leave carrots and hay as a snack.

Denmark

In addition to hay and carrots for the horses, kids in Denmark make rice pudding and leave it out for the elves. The children believe elves – who are named nisser and who live in the attic – will taunt them all evening if there is no pudding. Santa, however, gets nothing.

Fill in the blank cells using numbers 1 to 9. Each number can appear only once in each row, column and 3x3 block. Use logic and process of elimination to solve the puzzle. The difficulty level ranges from Bronze (easiest) to Silver to Gold (hardest).

Edited by Patti Varol and Joyce Nichols Lewis

Scott Anderson Ask Dr. Scott

Polina Kovaleva/Pexels

New Year’s resolutions require commitment.

No snowflakes are the same

THESE STUNNING CLOSE-UP PHOTOS ARE PROOF

The WashingTon PosT

People react differently when snow sweeps over a region: Some joyously build snowmen, some begrudgingly brush off their cars, and others hunker down in the comfort of their homes. Very few grab a black wool sock and capture high-definition crystal images of snowflakes. But Jason Persoff does.

With every hearty snowfall that strikes Colorado, Persoff adds to his growing collection of over 100 stunning snowflake images.

“They’re these transient structures made out of water vapor and dust, and they’re ethereal. They’re here for a short period of time and then they’re gone,” said Persoff, who has been taking pictures of snowflakes for six years.

While many photographers work out of studios, Persoff’s studio is his back deck, he has placed a black wool sock, a camera, a table and some lights. After the fibers from his sock catch the falling flakes, Persoff holds his breath and hosts snowflake auditions.

It takes nearly 40 highfocused images stacked on top of each other to create one mesmerizing snow photograph.

Each snowflake tells a story of how atmospheric conditions combined to etch out each unique crystal pattern. Based on the shape and the definition of each snowflake, scientists can determine the temperatures it encountered on its way down and how close to the ground it formed.

The dazzling chiseled flakes form right above ground level, Persoff told The Post.

“It’s not only that there aren’t two snowflakes that are alike, it’s that every single one of them is so damn cool,” said Persoff, an

assistant director of emergency preparedness at the University of Colorado Hospital.

Kenneth Libbrecht, a physics professor at the California Institute of Technology, said capturing beautiful crystals can be challenging because the average crystal is, “small . . . beat up, asymmetrical, [and] not branched.”

“Your average snowflakes

are pretty dull-looking,” said Libbrecht, who has studied snowflakes for over 20 years.

Stellar dendrites, the snowflakes so often featured on holiday illustrations, form when water vapor combines with dust in clouds and freeze. Once an individual water droplet freezes, the tiny piece of ice acts like a sponge absorbing more water vapor from the air, causing the

ice to grow. Other unfrozen water droplets in clouds evaporate and condense onto the ice.

“The liquid first evaporates and then the vapor deposits on the snowflakes,” Libbrecht said. “It takes about 100,000 droplets to make a snowflake because the droplets are very small.”

It takes just over a half an hour before a crystal grows to a few millimeters in size.

Once the crystals are heavy enough, they fall.

Sometimes, the tiny glasslike crystals come in colors that are nearly invisible to the naked eye in normal lighting. Through a process called thin-film interference, the center of some snowflakes reflects vibrant colors similar to the colors reflected from soap bubbles. Color only develops when the crystal forms with thin flat bubbles on the side, according to Libbrecht.

“As the light goes through one layer and then the next layer and then bounces back, it creates these colors that are like water and gasoline,” Persoff said.

The location of where the snow falls plays a huge role in whether images can be taken at all. Aurora, Colo., where Persoff has lived for most of his life, has near perfect conditions for capturing the flakes due to the “right temperatures and generally low humidity,” he said.

Persoff added: “Most of the time when I’ve encountered winter precipitation elsewhere in the country, it hasn’t been these amazing individual flakes.”

Libbrecht said the best crystals form at the “magic temperature of 5 degrees Fahrenheit” and in places that don’t experience a lot of wind. Northern parts of Japan, Ontario and Sweden and much of Vermont are known for “gorgeous snowflakes,” he said.

But even given the right conditions, the crystals could still turn out to be “very unattractivelooking,” Libbrecht said. “Each crystal experiences slightly different growth conditions, temperature and humidity. So they all grow a little bit different.”

Finding a perfect snowflake is possible “any place where it gets cold enough,” Libbrecht said. “You have to be patient.”

The perturbations in the snowflake occur because of how water vapor meets the cylindrical prism that is an early flake.

A snowflake shows the floral pattern because of a vertical series of growth from the center.

Snowflakes start off as prisms with six sides. At some points in this snowflake’s path, the conditions changed back and forth for some vertical development, but largely lateral development.

Jason Persoff/The Washington Post photos

Occasionally bubbles form in the center of snowflakes early in their genesis and then collapse leading to a perfect circle in the center of a flake. The process in this snowflake appears to have repeated multiple times.

0631

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT

THE FOLLOWING PERSON (PERSONS) IS (ARE) DOING BUSINESS AS REDESIGN TO ALIGN

LOCATEDAT349HopkinsDr,Fairfield CA94533Solano.Mailingaddress349 HopkinsDr,FairfieldCA94533.ARE HEREBYREGISTEREDBYTHEFOLLOWINGOWNER(S)EightLLCCARedding,96001.THISBUSINESSISCONDUCTEDBY: aLimitedLiabilityCompany Theregistrantcommencedtotransact businessunderthefictitiousbusiness nameornameslistedabov eonN/A. Ideclarethatallinformationinthisstatementistrueandcorrect(Aregistrantwho declaresastrueinformationwhichheor sheknowstobefalseisguiltyofacrime.) /s/CynthiaCowartmemberRedesignto Align INACCORDANCEWITHSUBDIVISION (a)OFSECTION17920AFICTITIOUS NAMESTATEMENTGENERALLYEXPIRESATTHEENDOFFIVEYEARS FROMTHEDATEONWHICHITWAS FILEDINTHEOFFICEOFTHECOUNTY CLERK,EXCEPTASPROVIDEDIN SUBDIVISION(b)OFSECTION17920, WHEREIT EXPIRES40DAYSAFTER ANYCHANGEINTHEFACTSSET FORTHINTHESTATEMENTPURSUANTTOSECTION17913OTHERTHAN ACHANGEINTHERESIDENCEADDRESSOFAREGISTEREDOWNER. ANEWFICTITIOUSBUSINESSNAME STATEMENTMUSTBEFILEDBEFORE THEEXPIRATIONDecember6,2027. THEFILINGOFTHISSTATEMENT DOESNOTOFITSELFAUTHORIZE THEUSEINTHISSTATEOFAFICTITIOUSBUSINESSNAMEINVIOLATION OFTHERIGHTSOFANOTHERUNDER FEDERAL,STATEORCOMMONLAW (SEESECTION14411ETSEQ.,BUSINESSANDPROFESSIONSCODE). FiledintheOfficeoftheCountyClerkof SolanoCounty,StateofCaliforniaon: December7,2022 NewASSIGNEDFILENO.2022002002 CHARLESLOMELI,SolanoCountyClerk DR#00059988 Published:December11,18,25,2022 January1,2023

NOTICE OF PETITION TO ADMINISTER ESTATE OF: MARIA MARTINEZ

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APetitionforProbatehasbeenfiledby: Brendon Lee Wakefield intheSuperiorCourtofCalifornia,County o f:Solano

ThePetitionforProbaterequeststhat: Brendon Lee Wakefield beappointedaspersonalrepresentative toadministertheestateofthedecedent. Thepetitionrequeststhedecedent'swill andcodicils,ifany,beadmittedtoprobate.Thewillandanycodicilsareavailableforexaminationinthefilekeptbythe court.

ThepetitionrequestsauthoritytoadministertheestateundertheIndependentAdministrationofEstatesAct.(Thisauthority willallow thepersonalrepresentativeto takemanyactionswithoutobtainingcourt approval.Beforetakingcertainveryimportantactions,however,thepersonal representativewillberequiredtogivenoticetointerestedpersonsunlessthey havewaivednoticeorconsentedtothe proposedaction.)Theindependentadministrationauthoritywillbegrantedunless aninterestedpersonfilesanobjectionto thepetitionandshowsgoodcausewhy thecourtshouldnotgranttheauthority.

A hearing on the petition will be held in this court as follows:

DATE: JAN. 10, 2023 TIME: 9:00 a.m. DEPT.: 22

SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, County of Solano Old Solano Courthouse 580 Texas Street, Fairfield, CA 94533

If you object tothegrantingofthepetition,youshouldappearatthehearingand stateyourobjectionsorfilewrittenobjectionswiththecourtbeforethehearing. Yourappearancemaybeinpersonorby yourattorney. If you are a creditor or a contingent creditor of the decedent, youmustfileyourclaimwiththecourtand mailacopytothepersonalrepresentative appointedbythecourtwithinthe later of either(1)four months fromthedateof firstissuanceofletterstoageneralpersonalrepresentative,asdefinedinsection58(b)oftheCaliforniaProbateCode, or(2) 60 days fromthedateofmailingor personaldeliverytoyouofanoticeunder section9052ofthe CaliforniaProbate Code. Other California statutes and legal authority may affect your rights as a creditor. You may wantto consult with an attorney knowledgeable in California law. You may examine the file kept by the court.Ifyouareapersoninterestedinthe estate,youmayfilewiththecourtaRequestforSpecialNotice(formDE-154)of thefilingofaninventoryandappraisalof estateassetsorofanypetitionoraccount asprovided inProbateCodesection 1250.ARequestforSpecialNoticeformis availablefromthecourtclerk.

Petitioner: BrendonLeeWakefield 7937VantageAve NorthHollywood,CA91605 224-247-8914 DR#00060258 Published:Dec.25,28,2022Jan.1,2023

CASE NUMBER: P051829

Toallheirs,beneficiaries,creditors,contingentcreditors,andpersonswhomay otherwisebeinterestedinthewillorestate,orboth,of: Maria Martinez

APetitionforProbatehasbeenfiledby: Rosaisela Llamas intheSuperiorCourtofCalifornia,County of: Solano

ThePetitionforProbaterequeststhat: Rosaisela Llamas beappointedaspersonalrepresentative toadmin istertheestateofthedecedent.

ThepetitionrequestsauthoritytoadministertheestateundertheIndependentAdministrationofEstatesAct.(Thisauthority willallowthepersonalrepresentativeto takemanyactionswithoutobtainingcourt approval.Beforetakingcertainveryimportantactions,however,thepersonal representativewillberequiredtogivenoticetointerestedpersonsunlessthey havewaivednoticeorconsentedtothe proposedaction.)Th eindependentadministrationauthoritywillbegrantedunless aninterestedpersonfilesanobjectionto thepetitionandshowsgoodcausewhy thecourtshouldnotgranttheauthority.

A hearing on the petition will be held in this court as follows:

DATE: JAN. 11, 2023 TIME: 9:00 am DEPT.: 22

SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, County of Solano Old Solano Courthouse 580 Texas Street, Fairfield, CA 94533

If you object tothegrantingofthepetition,youshouldappearatthehearingand stateyourobjectionsorfilewrittenobjectionswiththecourtbeforethehearing.

Yourappearancemaybeinpersonorby yourattorney. If you are a creditor or a contingent creditor of the decedent, youmustfileyourclaimwiththecourtand mailacopytothepersonalrepresentative appointedbythecourtwithinthe later of either(1)four months fromthedateof firstissuanceofletterstoageneralpersonalrepresentative,asdefinedinsection58(b)oftheCaliforniaProbateCode, or(2) 60 days fromthedateofmailingor personaldeliverytoyouofanoticeunder section9052oftheCaliforniaProbate Code. Other California statutes and legal authority may affect your rights as a creditor. You may wantto consult with an attorney knowledgeable in California law. You may examine the file kept by the court.Ifyouareapersoninterestedinthe estate,youmayfilewiththecourtaRequestforSpecialNotice(formDE-154)of thefilingofaninventoryandappraisalof estateassetsorofanypetitionoraccount asprovidedinProbateCodesection 1250.ARequestforSpecialNoticeformis availablefromthecourtclerk.

AttorneyforPetitioner: DylanP.Hyatt TheLawOfficesofHassellandHyatt,PC 7420GreenhavenDrive,Suite115, Sacramento,CA95831 (916)292-8009 DR#00060088 Published:Dec.18,21,25,2022

ANTTOSECTION17913OTHERTHAN ACHANGEINTHERESIDENCEADDRESSOFAREGISTEREDOWNER. ANEWFICTITIOUSBUSINESSNAME STATEMENTMUSTBEFILEDBEFORE THEEXPIRATIONDecember13,2027. THEFILINGOFTHISSTATEMENT DOESNOTOFITSELFAUTHORIZE THEUSEINTHISSTATEOFAFICTITIOUSBUSINESSNAMEINVIOLATION OFTHERIGHTSOFANOTHERUNDER FEDERAL,STATEORCOMMONLAW (SEESECTION14411ETSEQ., BUSINESSANDPROFESSIONSCODE). FiledintheOfficeoftheCountyClerkof SolanoCounty,StateofCaliforniaon: December14,2022 NewASSIGNEDFILENO.2022002057 CHARLESLOMELI,SolanoCountyClerk DR#00060099 Published:December18,25,2022 January1,8,2023

NESSISCONDUCTEDBY:

on 12/07/2022.

sheknowstobefalseisguiltyofacrime.) /s/KevinCotton INACCORDANCEWITHSUBDIVISION (a)OFSECTION17920AFICTITIOUS NAMESTATEMENTGENERALLYEXPIRESATTHEENDOFFIVEYEARS FROMTHEDATEONWHICHITWAS FILEDINTHEOFFICEOFTHECOUNTY CLERK,EXCEPTASPROVIDEDIN SUBDIVISION(b)OFSECTION17920, WHEREITEXPIRES40DAYSAFTER ANYCHANGEINTHEFACTSSET FORTHINTHESTATEMENTPURSUANTTOSECTION17913OTHERTHAN ACHANGEINTHERESIDENCEADDRESSOFAREGISTEREDOWNER. ANEWFICTITIOUSBUSINESSNAME STATEMENTMUSTBEFILEDBEFORE THEEXPIRATIONDecember6,2027. THEFILINGOFTHISSTATEMENT DOESNOTOFITSELFAUTHORIZE THEUSEINTHISSTATEOFAFICTITIOUSBUSINESSNAMEINVIOLATION OFTHERIGHTSOFANOTHERUNDER FEDERAL,STATEORCOMMONLAW (SEESECTION14411ETSEQ.,BUSINESSANDPROFESSIONSCODE). FiledintheOfficeoftheCountyClerkof SolanoCounty,StateofCaliforniaon: December7,2022 NewASSIGNEDFILENO.2022001999 CHARLESLOMELI,SolanoCountyClerk DR#00059981 Published:Dec.11,18,25,2022 Jan.1,2023