Mendocino County Today: Saturday 8/16/2025

Weak Front | Removed Skylight | Robert Samuel James | FFA Produce | Money Shuffle | New Owners | GRTA Talk | Big Pipes | Doing Nothing | Filipino Caregivers | BOS Haircut | Lois 101 | K Issues | Coast Cinemas | River Restoration | Creek Cleanup | Local Events | Yosemite Visit | Bunyan Parade | KZYX Good | Elk Coast | Great Day | 105th Anniversary | Mendo-Lake Bank | Coast Theatre | Yesterday's Catch | Old Records | Dying City | Marco Radio | Giants Lose | Out Doors | Playing Checkers | Rotten System | Little Pirates | Perfect Day | Bottle Refunds | What Else | Lead Stories | Screwed Around | Ukraine Talk | Boiled Cabbage

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A WEAK early season cold front will bring slight, light rain potential to the coast early today with showers possible inland. Any measurable rain potential will remain north of Cape Mendocino. Warmer and drier weather gradually returns next week. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): A very warm 57F under cloudy skies this Saturday morning on the coast. The NWS is still holding onto a 20% chance of rain after 11am. I not sold but you never know. More of the same to follow.

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BODY RECOVERED AT REGGAE ON THE RIVER

The Mendocino County Sheriff's Office has confirmed that they recovered the body of Robert Samuel James, a 66-year-old man from Los Angeles who had traveled to the area to attend the Reggae on the River festival hosted by the Mateel Community Center in Redway.

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ANDERSON VALLEY FFA: The Anderson Valley Food Bank was Friday. Dorian and the Victory Garden delivered 182 pounds of produce from our school farm. There was zucchini, melons, cucumbers, first bell peppers, Asian pears and cabbage.

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SUPES TO RAID RESTRICTED FUNDS

by Mark Scaramella

The Supervisors have scheduled a special meeting for Monday, August 18 to deal with an urgent financial matter:

“Adopt Resolution authorizing County Auditor-Controller/Treasurer-Tax Collector to establish and abolish Funds and make temporary transfers of money between Funds; and authorize Chair to sign same.”

In the attached resolution we find these excerpts giving hints of what’s behind this unusual and urgent proposal:

“All funds over which the Board of Supervisors has authority shall be treated without restriction as a single pool of funds for the purpose of determining whether cash is available to pay warrants…” [i.e., bills and payroll]

“All County department heads responsible for County funds shall endeavor to avoid cash deficits throughout the fiscal year…” [Why does this even need to be said?]

“In the event of any material cash deficits occur or are projected to occur in a particular fund, the department head shall notify the Auditor-Controller/Treasurer-Tax Collector and County Chief Executive Officer with enough notice to ensure that the deficit can be managed appropriately…” [Are some departments dipping into restricted funds to cover their own costs without telling anyone about it?]

“The 2025-2026 anticipated revenues accruing to the Road Fund, the General Fund of the County and the General Fund of districts whose funds are in the custody of the Auditor-Controller/Treasurer-Tax Collector, may not become available until after July 1, 2025 [almost two months ago?], but before the last Monday in April, 2026…” [Are the feds withholding or delaying funds? Which ones? Is this an attempt to grab Teeter funds that are intended to go to School Districts and other Special Districts like Fire Departments?]

“All funds temporarily transferred will continue to earn interest on behalf of the entity from which the funds are borrowed.” [“Borrowed”? Any such “borrowing” should be accompanied by a reimbursement plan.]

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Reading Mendo’s obscure financial tea leaves to determine what they may mean is a fool’s errand. But… We have no idea why they’d need to “abolish” any funds. It looks like Mendo is in a short term cash flow bind and has to raid some otherwise restricted funds to cover expenses “temporarily.” Whatever restrictions were put in place on these funds had a good reason, yet here they are being casually if not recklessly asked to toss those reasons in the dustbin. They don’t say why, or why now or when the “temporary” borrowing will end or how the “borrowed” funds will be returned. If these internal funds were set up for and restricted to a specific purpose, the impact of eliminating them or “borrowing” from them should be carefully thought through and evaluated, not put on the special meeting agenda for urgent rubberstamping. It’s a bad sign, especially if the County wants to raid funds that are earmarked for schools and emergency services. We would like to think the Board will demand a full explanation, but given this Board’s history, it’s likely that they’ll be told that they have no choice but to approve this or something dire will happen. Perhaps we will find out more about what’s behind this on Monday. But don’t hold your breath.

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FORT BRAGG’S COAST CINEMAS Has Been Saved!

New owners Desiree & Terry Ramos will keep the town’s only theater open — preserving a beloved community hub and planning fresh upgrades for locals & visitors alike.

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WHAT’S NEXT FOR THE GREAT REDWOOD TRAIL?

Officials field questions in town hall

by Sage Alexander

Four years after the Great Redwood Trail Act was signed into law, officials fielded questions about work on the planned 320-mile trail, in a town hall hosted by state Sen. Mike McGuire (D-Healdsburg) on Tuesday night.

McGuire and other officials working to make the trail a reality shared their vision as segments are crossed off and long-range planning is tackled. They described progress on the trail that would be the longest rail-to-trail conversion in the U.S., once completed. McGuire, a long-time proponent of the trail, said one-third of the entire trail has either been completed, is under construction or is in a final planning stage.

“It’s going to traverse through the tallest trees on the planet, some of the most spectacular landscapes on Earth, oak-studded golden hills, lush vineyards along two mighty rivers, the Eel and the Russian, and it is going to be a spectacular experience,” he said.

Recent work includes the newly completed stretch of the Humboldt Bay trail connecting Eureka to Arcata, which adds 14 miles to the trail, plus a 1.6-mile segment in Willits and 1.9-mile segment in Ukiah to be completed by next year.

The trail will stretch from the San Francisco Bay to Blue Lake, largely along a rail corridor formerly owned by the North Coast Railroad Authority. A master plan for the trail was released in April 2024.

Elaine Hogan, executive director of the Great Redwood Trail Agency, does not know when the trail will be done.

“I hate to disappoint, but we don’t have a final date yet. We are still in the master planning process,” she said, noting “we have made incredible progress just over the last three years since the Great Redwood Trail Agency took the helm from a bankrupt and dilapidated railroad.”

An undertaking to convert the defunct railway into a trail through railbanking, officials honed into the benefit of the environmental cleanup required — including the removal of several cars currently in the Eel River.

“There’s abandoned rail cars, abandoned rail equipment, tracks, there’s land that has been (degraded). And we’re really focusing on, how do we improve, repair and clean up this legacy that was left by the railroad and make it into a world-class pathway,” said Mary Sackett, chair of the trail agency’s board of directors.

One question touched on 2024 legislation that specifically exempts much of the GRTA work from the California Environmental Quality Act, and how it would be handled to minimize and mitigate environmental and cultural harm.

“The bottom line is that regardless of how any new CEQA exemptions may or may not apply to segments of our trail, our commitment remains the same. Clean up the corridor, protect cultural resources and restore the land in partnership with the people who know and care for it the best,” said Hogan.

With the GRTA most recently approving contracts with People of New Directions in Humboldt County and other groups in Mendocino to address homeless encampments and dumping, officials talked about their approach.

“We are taking a proactive, prevention-first approach to homelessness along those undeveloped segments of the trail, and those are the segments that the Great Redwood Trail Agency manages. So those are trail segments that are not yet developed,” said Hogan.

She said the contracts in Humboldt and Mendocino counties will allow the agency to partner with community based organizations and local businesses to provide regular outreach, case management, referrals and connections to shelter and health care, while keeping the property “clean and safe.”

Officials also spoke on outreach with Native American groups — last year, a collective of people, from groups Indigenous to the Eel River Valley, pointed to the decimation of village and burial sites when the railroad was built, the inability of descendants to access the land, and spoke in opposition to the trail due to the lack of outreach, according to reporting from MendoFever from June 2024.

“Over the past three years, during the master planning process, we’ve reached out directly to more than 30 tribes and tribal organizations. We’ve held dozens of meetings, presentations, and one-on-one conversations that continue and will be ongoing. The collaboration has really led to us getting 13 clear recommendations from tribes that are now built into our master plan,” said Hogan.

She also noted the GRTA would be hiring contractors on ecological restoration, cultural resource monitoring and land stewardship.

The chair of the GRTA board similarly committed to continuing outreach with Indigenous people to the areas set to be turned to trail earlier in the meeting.

They touched on legs of the trail in Humboldt County — Hogan noted Arcata recently put a project out to bid to connect the city from the skate park near Cal Poly Humboldt in Arcata out to the Humboldt Bay municipal water district pump stations along West End Road.

As for funding, Hogan said they have operational funding from state support for the next several years, and anticipate applying for grants through Proposition Four.

Further south, officials also presented on the SMART pathway, 39 miles of which are already completed, and another 10 miles are funded for construction.

The full town hall, which contains more details about progress in the south end, can be watched at tinyurl.com/56fs5ka6.

(Ukiah Daily Journal/Eureka Times-Standard)

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RANDY BURKE (Gualala): Pipe's on the job… Let's get smokin'

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WHEN DOING NOTHING IS A GOOD THING

by Jim Shields

The last time we left the Board of Supervisors at their July 29 meeting, they were putting the finishing touches on a pair of proposals to cut their salaries and eliminate other expenses in their budget. It was disappointing but not unexpected that the Supervisors, with the exception of District 3 Supervisor John Haschak, refused to cut their budget by 6 percent even though they are requiring all other county departments to do so. The BOS budget would only have been reduced by $20,500, which is an insignificant amount. At minimum, the county wastes 20 grand on a daily basis.

Likewise, Haschak proposed that the annual salary of the Board of Supervisors be reduced from $110,715.00 to $103,008. Again, another trifling amount, as it amounts to $7,707 reduction per Supe or $38,535 for all five.

I want to remind everyone that Supes Haschak and Ted Williams did the right thing by voting in favor of cutting Supervisors salaries, but were out-voted by their colleagues (Mo Mulheren, Bernie Norvell, and Madeline Cline) who evidently have a different set of priorities when it comes to balancing a deficit budget, even though CEO Darcy Antle estimates next year's budget has a $16 million "structural deficit", some $10 million more than this year's deficit of $6 million.

In total the BOS Budget would have been reduced by $59,035, representing an overall budget reduction of 6 percent.

Haschak’s argument was given the dire straits of a deficit budget, balanced only by $6 million of one-time funds, coupled with the unknown fiscal effects of a so-called “strategic hiring freeze,” the Supes needed to get onboard and do their part sharing the pain of these tough economic times. But a majority of his colleagues refused to make even a minor sacrifice.

In his August monthly report to constituents, Haschak stated, “With the budget based on future cuts to staff and resources ($6 million this year and a projected $16 million next year), the Board directed all departments to cut their budgets by 6%. I proposed that the Board take the lead and make cuts of 6% to its budget, by both cutting expenses and rolling back the raise that took place in July. The Board did not approve the proposed cuts to out-of-country travel, communications, special department expenses and so forth. The Board also voted down my proposal to roll back raises for the Supervisors.”

The Board is now on a 6-week summer hiatus with their next public meeting not occurring until September 9th.

A lot of folks are upset that the County is calling timeout for this “recess.”

Addressing the late-summer recess, Mark Scaramella, of the Anderson Valley Advertiser, said, “In 2024 the Board took a six-week summer vacation as well, there being so little to do. No multi-million dollar budget gaps to attend to, no issues like homeless camps, glamping regs, airbnb rules, no staffing problems at the nearly finished Psychiatric Health Facility or the new wing of the jail, no road work to finance, no lawsuits to settle, no union negotiations to conduct, no tax sharing agreements or annexation proposals to examine or review, no vacancy reports to review… You know, nothing much. So let’s take six weeks off! Anyone who thinks the Supervisors are working hard for their generous salaries and benefit packages while not going to Board meetings for six weeks can look back at the agenda for last year’s post-vacation board meeting and see that no supervisors used the time off to develop any priority agenda items that required preparation or extraordinary proposals. We will be watching to see if this latest month and a half off produces any results.”

While I agree there’s little, if any, justification for this 6-week adjournment of government business, I’m going to tell you something.

As I’ve said many times before, it never concerns me when our elected representatives take time off, no matter what the reason is. A congressman is gone on a two-week paid junket to the South of France, good for him, hope he has fantastic culinary experiences and plenty of five-martini lunches.

Here’s the deal.

Politics and the governing process are now so dysfunctional, unproductive, and toxic, we are actually so much better off when politicians, including our Board of Supervisors, are absent from their august chambers because they are unable to make much mischief when they aren’t on the clock.

Too many elected officials and “public servants” go out of their way to create problems when their main goal and purpose is to solve problems. Remember, problems just don’t happen, people make them happen, and too many of those people are our elected representatives. Most people don't have lofty expectations of their elected representatives. Most people would settle for politicians adopting the Physician's Oath of “First, do no harm.”

So you might say the more vacations, recesses, and tax-paid junkets politicians reward themselves with, the better off we are.

(Jim Shields is the Mendocino County Observer’s editor and publisher, [email protected], the long-time district manager of the Laytonville County Water District, and is also chairman of the Laytonville Area Municipal Advisory Council. Listen to his radio program “This and That” every Saturday at 12 noon on KPFN 105.1 FM, also streamed live: http://www.kpfn.org)

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JAKE BAREFOOT:

When I first moved back to Mendocino and shared stories of my work in the Philippines, people would often ask if I could help connect them with caregivers here. For a long time, I had to explain that my work was with virtual teams.

I’m happy to say that is no longer the case.

I have recently finalized a partnership with the team at Care Plus Provider to bring experienced Filipino caregivers to Mendocino County, helping our community members age in place with professional support. In many cases, these services are fully or partially covered by insurance.

When my mom passed, having a caregiver meant I could focus on her instead of chores and errands. A woman from Cebu named Maria helped us during that time, and she was absolutely incredible. I want to offer that same level of care and peace of mind to families here.

If you or someone you know in Mendocino or anywhere else in California needs (or will be needing) assistance, send me a message. I am happy to provide a free assessment and review what your insurance may cover.

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HAIRCUT TIME

A Reader Writes:

Time for some numbers.

What do other rural counties with similar household median incomes pay their supervisors (total pay + benefits, 2023)?

Here's a sample:

Lassen County -- $69,991. (Supervisor Aaron Albaugh.) - [$64,395 Household Median]

Plumas County -- $104,588. (Supervisor Kevin Goss.) - [$64,946 Household Median]

Sutter County -- $74,831. (Supervisor Michael J. Ziegenmeyer.) - [$75,450 Household Median]

Lake County -- $115,109. (Supervisor Moke “Jose” Simon.) - [$58,738 Household Median]

Humboldt County -- $156,745. (Supervisor Rex Bohn.) - [$61,135 Household Median]

Del Norte County -- $50,143. (Supervisor Dean Wilson.) - [$66,780 Household Median]

Glenn County -- $75,114. (Supervisor Thomas Jose Arnold.) - [$70,487 Household Median]

Average compensation of these rural counties: $92,360. (total pay + benefits, 2023)

Mendocino County -- (Supervisor Ted Williams): $173,313. - [$64,688 Household Median]

That compensation is 87.7% higher than the rural-peer average.

Mendocino isn’t benchmarking to counties with similar rural economies; it’s benchmarking upward toward numbers it simply cannot sustain.

For perspective, Sonoma County, a far wealthier, urbanized county. Pays supervisors roughly $236k-$241k in total comp (e.g., David Rabbitt 2023; Lynda Hopkins 2022). Mendocino is now paying its supervisors 63 - 64% of Sonoma levels despite having a fraction of Sonoma’s revenue base.

And here’s the kicker: Sonoma County’s FY 2034-2024 budget was $2.3 billion (yes, billion with a capital B). If Mendocino truly wants to “match” 63 - 64% of Sonoma supervisor pay, then I would love to see the clouds part and a local county budget around the $1.46 Billion range drop in our lap. I mean seriously, the math ain't mathing when the median household income of Sonoma county is $102,840 while we chime in at $64,688 (which ironically is 63% of Sonoma County… imagine that.)

We’re literally funneling champagne-level pay to these 'Supes on a beer budget with performance that’s dismal at best. Their “vision” for Mendocino is nothing more than a copy-paste of wealthier counties’ playbooks. From this viewpoint, it's like witnessing a community theater actor demanding Broadway salaries while performing in a high school gym.

Yes, it's that bad.

If this were a publicly traded stock, it wouldn’t just be a sell. It would be a classic textbook case study in executive bloat, weak fundamentals, and zero growth prospects. This lack of leadership destroys shareholder value in the private sector.

I’d short this dog until it traded for scrap value.

Time for a haircut.

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LONGTIME UKIAH RESIDENT TURNS 101 THIS WEEK

by Justine Frederiksen

At 100 years old, Lois Stoneman was still driving to get her hair done once a week, then taking herself out to lunch at Stars restaurant in Ukiah.

“She liked to get the strawberry waffles, and a hot chocolate,” said her grandson Dean Giese, who Stoneman moved in with after her husband, Lowell, died several years ago. “She is quite the lady.”

But this spring, Stoneman had a bad fall. And after three days in the hospital, she was moved to the Cloverdale Healthcare Center, where she turned 101 on Monday, Aug. 11. To celebrate her impressive milestone, a large group of family and friends took Stoneman out to a Mexican restaurant in Cloverdale, where she wore a big pink sombrero and ate tacos.

The 101th birthday celebration in Cloverdale, Monday, Aug. 11. (Contributed)

“I feel good,” she said, though admitted to being frustrated that her legs aren’t working right anymore, “because I can’t get out of this chair.”

Stoneman still stays as active as she can, however, noting that she likes to read mysteries and “Amish books,” do puzzles and play Bingo.

“You have to keep your mind busy,” she said.

Born in Idaho on Aug. 11, 1924, Lois married Lowell Stoneman and the couple had a daughter, Verl Mae – who has since passed at age 79 – before moving to Mendocino County for her husband’s work.

“We moved to Willits in 1952, and he worked at the mill,” she said, explaining that five years later the family moved to Ukiah, and she began working in the kitchen at the hospital.

“I started out as a ‘tray girl,’ then worked my way up to kitchen manager,” she said, recalling that she helped serve the last meal at the old hospital before it closed, then worked at the new hospital for about five years before retiring.

Then “sometime in the late 1990s,” Giese said, the Stonemans moved back to Idaho, where the cost of living was cheaper than in California.

About a decade ago, Giese said he started asking his grandparents to move back to Ukiah to live with him.

“I asked grandpa if he wanted to, and he said, ‘Oh, I’d like to come back to Ukiah and live with you, if it weren’t for your grandmother,” Giese recalled. “Then I’d ask grandma if she wanted to come live with me, and she said the same thing! So I sat them both down together, and we started working on having them move back to California.”

But before he could get them moved, Giese said his grandfather died. Then soon after, Giese and his brother Larry moved their grandmother back to Mendocino County.

Lois and Lowell were married for 73 years, and when asked for her secret to a long marriage, Stoneman said three things: “Well, we didn’t step out on each other, and we loved each other. He was a good man.”

As for her secret to an extra long life, Stoneman said she wasn’t sure how, or why, she’s lived this long, but guessed that “the Lord still has things for me to do.”

Her grandson, however, guessed that his grandparents’ lifestyle as Seventh-Day Adventists helped them both live past 90, as “they didn’t drink or smoke, and ate mostly healthy.”

And while Giese admitted that his grandmother did not want to go live in Cloverdale at first, he said she soon made friends, and is happy there.

“She has fun every day,” he said, adding that his grandmother was also worried that her grandsons, whom she described as “both wonderful,” would not be able to visit her as often if she lived in Cloverdale, but “I visit her a lot still, at least two or three times a week. And it is a very nice place, very clean.”

When asked if she had any other relatives who lived as long as she has, Stoneman said she did have an aunt named Nola who lived to be 102, “so I guess maybe my goal is to make it to 103.”

(Ukiah Daily Journal)

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CLASS K UNFAIRNESS

To the Editor:

I have read the June 6, 2025 Mendocino County Civil Grand Jury’s report, “Planning and Building Department Structural Issues: Exposing the Cracks.” The report reveals significant issues with the Class K permit process, and county staff now agree the permit is being misused, leading to a host of problems.

The report highlights, but between the lines in our realities, that wealthy residents and business owners benefit from lax regulations also while the general public suffers.

This regulatory failure has far-reaching consequences. From a safety perspective, unregulated structures pose a significant risk, particularly with wildfire danger. The report notes that these structures can also serve as hidden locations for criminal activities, such as those connected to the ongoing crisis of missing and murdered indigenous women.

The misuse of the Class K permit is also tied to broader socioeconomic issues. The popularity of Additional Dwelling Units (ADUs) for profit, such as Airbnbs, has exacerbated the affordable housing crisis, as exemplified in Sonoma County. The report suggests that the Class K permit, while intended to help rural homeowners, largely benefited the “boomer” generation and has not adapted to the transparency and needs of a more diverse population of taxpayers.

The influence of the cannabis industry and the “back-to-the-land” movement had a history of honorable protest and autonomy, but it must also acknowledge the displacement of Native peoples. The report’s findings, while addressing many of these dangers, are limited in focus on financial burdens, and I recommend more income generation and fully addressing the underlying issues of greed and systemic inequality.

There is a culture of favoritism, nepotism, and double standards within the code enforcement department, where a “badge holder” culture protects certain individuals and businesses from scrutiny. Some code enforcement staffers are ex-law enforcement, and there is a perception that equitable treatment is not applied to those outside this network. This culture of not holding people in power accountable is linked to a mindset of “this is how we have always done it,” a practice that hinders progress and modernization. I argue this is a regressive mindset and practice that must be eliminated.

Looking forward, the report calls for changes, including holding violators accountable for code violations and a re-evaluation of how business is conducted in the county. I suggest that the BOS investigate and address why improved living spaces and cost of living or housing are so expensive for residents.

Additionally, the report recommends increased training for staff and more accountability at all levels of leadership to ensure that codes are applied consistently and fairly. I believe that if the “old guard” is unwilling to change, they must be replaced. It is “backasswards” to not modernize effective procedures, operations, ordinances and enforcement. This view of “this is how we’ve always done things” models the lifestyle of 1970, the community values of 1950, and the geographical wishes of 1850. The way forward is not the old, the past, or the unchanged.

This “wild west” mentality, with its lack of transparency and enforcement, has led to substandard living conditions, environmental degradation, and a decline in public trust. By prioritizing accountability, modernization, and equitable application of the law, the county can improve public safety, increase tax revenue, and build a more just and prosperous community for all residents. This requires a shift from a system that protects the interests of a few to one that serves the welfare of the many.

Alexander Templeton

Ukiah

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EEL RIVER DAM REMOVAL WILL BRING LOCAL BENEFITS

Editor:

PG&E is finally planning to remove the two aging dams on the Eel River as part of its decommissioning of the Potter Valley Project. These dams no longer generate power, and they continue to harm salmon runs, degrade water quality and pose serious risks to downriver communities.

Dam removal is our chance to restore one of California’s great rivers and invest in a better future. On the Klamath River, similar efforts supported over 4,000 jobs and opened hundreds of miles of salmon habitat. Now, the salmon are coming back.

North Coast communities can benefit from Eel River restoration if we plan ahead. Local businesses, tribes and workers must have access to contracts, workforce training and meaningful input. PG&E’s plan is a critical step forward. But public support and state leadership are needed to make sure this project delivers on its promise, not just for fish, but for people and the economy.

Let’s support Eel River dam removal and make it a win for the environment and our region.

Josa Talley

Orleans

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ORR CREEK CLEANUP TOMORROW MORNING

Summer of Loving Ukiah Cleanup Extravaganza extended! Bonus cleanup opportunity this Sunday morning!

Sunday morning August 17 from 9-11 AM we are going to clean up Orr Creek between Ford St. and Clara St.

We are meeting where the creek flows along the Great Redwood Trail between Ford and Clara. Lots of parking available and all cleanup materials provided.

9-11AM. Temperature will be amazing! Please join us!

For more information, please e-mail [email protected]

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LOCAL EVENTS (this weekend)

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ON THE ROAD

Editor,

Traveling to Yosemite

Made my way with the family to Yosemite this week. It was hot, but the crowds were relatively light.

The valley feels like a bustling city with honking horns and buses. Hiked to the top of Yosemite Falls in sweltering conditions. Escaped the valley and headed to Tuolumne Meadows and Tenaya Lake. Very pleasant up there. Didn’t see any bears unfortunately.

Some thoughts on getting there: it’s laughable that the Narrows south of Petaluma still are under construction. This is coming from someone who works for Caltrans. I feel like it has more to do with Marin County’s desire to isolate themselves just like they did when they voted down BART.

And HWY 12 is in desperate need of a facelift.

Now it’s back to school time. Already planning the trip for next year. Happy trails everyone.

Kirk Vodopals

Navarro

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THIS YEAR’S PAUL BUNYAN DAYS PARADE THEME is “Play Ball! With Paul and Babe.” The event will feature two Grand Marshals, each with a history in Fort Bragg baseball. Barbara Steckter will represent the Women’s League.

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WHY I LISTEN TO KZYX

by John Arteaga

You know, I am always puzzled by the apparently significant segment of the local populace who remain completely ignorant of the incredibly valuable local resource that is KZYX. It is difficult for me to imagine how one avoids exposure to this cultural oasis. A passing reference to ‘Amy’ will elicit a blank stare from these folks who somehow have avoided even occasional exposure to Ms. Goodman’s five day a week 4 o’clock news hour that is always jam packed with hard news from around the world which stands in such contrast to the polite, government approved distortions of reality available elsewhere.

Often, the contrast between Democracy Now and even NPR’s All Things Considered is stark, with NPR using politically innocuous euphemisms as opposed to DN’s plainspoken calling of a spade a spade. And remember, despite NPR’s cautiousness about offending anyone in power, it is still denounced by Trump as basically some kind of far left propaganda mill which the Trump regime is right now trying to completely defund.

We here in Mendo are so fortunate to have this homegrown, vital, cultural wellspring, built over the last few decades with enormous amounts of volunteer effort. No matter what kind of programming one is most interested in; classical, jazz, blues, even excellent hip-hop and rap, one can always find what one likes there, free of annoying commercials. For political junkies like myself there is a broad array of hard-hitting programs from a decidedly left progressive viewpoint that I feel so fortunate to have easy access to. I’ll bet that nationwide it is probably well under 1% of the population who is fortunate enough to be able to tune in such programming on their local radio station. Even though many of these cutting-edge shows that I love so much are on in the wee hours, KZYX’s handy free app allows me to listen to them at my leisure.

Something I recently learned on one of these political type shows, where they were decrying Trump’s attempt to stamp out any and all support for noncommercial, public interest oriented media of any kind, is how niggardly US public funding for these essential public interest programs already is, consider the way other first world democracies, such as those in Europe, fund their public radio and TV resources; in Britain, there is a small tax on every TV and radio that is sold, with the funds thus raised going directly to the highly respected worldwide media of the BBC. This funding stream cannot be meddled with by cranky, fickle politicians and the obsessions they’ve whip up in their bases. Likewise, Germany has Deutsche Welle, and France and most other big European democracies do likewise. Interestingly, the funding per citizen of those countries varies from about $50 to 30 or so per person per year. How do we stack up here in the US? Three lousy dollars per person! Of course Trump thinks that even that kind of nickelnosed, skinflint funding is excessive, and he doing his best to eradicate it altogether. PLEASE! If you can, give an extra contribution to KZYX to help them with the 174 thousand dollars ‘clawback’ that the feds just imposed on our local public radio station. Money that had been promised and suddenly, poof! One quarter of the stations operating budget, gone! Part of the scorched-earth campaign against anything that might help regular people in the name of giving more tax breaks to the filthy rich and greedy corporations. SHEESH!

Right now the most controversial subject seems to be the godforsaken people of Gaza and the nationwide edict, brought to us thanks to AIPAC and its many affiliates who maintain an absolute stranglehold over US policy, that any opposition to Israel’s genocide of the Palestinians is ipso facto proof that one is a Holocaust denying anti-Semite. Never mind the fact that many of the most vociferous and eloquent opponents of this ongoing genocide happened to be Jews, and that one can read in much more detail about such things as IDF leaders commanding their troops to open fire on unarmed, starving, pathetic fellow human beings who have undergone serious effort to haul their insufficiently fed bodies down to an insufficiently resourced ‘humanitarian relief site’ (run by cynical US and Israeli ‘security’ outfits), in the Israeli press; Haaretz. The poor starving Palestinians are assembled into crowds that can then be killed efficiently, their tight spacing allowing the evil IDF snipers to kill one and maim a few others with each round. This bait and kill game has been going on for too long; thousands of relief trucks wait to get in to the millions of Palestinian who are, not on “the verge of starvation” THEY ARE STARVING! To death!

I want to barf every time I hear about how Biden or Trump or whoever is, “frustrated with the Israelis reluctance to allow the transportation of lifesaving food, water and medicine.” Are you kidding me? We pay all their bills! We supply all of their military hardware and ammunition! Compliments of the hapless US taxpayer, even though they may be completely opposed to everything Israel is doing. How can it not be that a single phone call from the Oval Office to the war criminal Netanyahu could not stop this insanity TODAY!?

All they’ve got to say is, “tell you what, Bibi, ALL of those relief trucks are rolling in there tomorrow, accompanied by all the Marines we can round up and their backup. Got a problem with that? Want all your IDF guys to get wasted? Open the god damn border or you and your whole vicious settler-colonial project can go to the hell where you belong!

How can it be that all these presidents of this most powerful country in world history don’t have the huevos to make such a phone call and save the millions of innocent Palestinians now suffering under their unimaginable conditions?

Link to my blog https://inarationalworld2.blogspot.com/2025/08/you-know-i-am-always-puzzled-by.html

(John Arteaga is a Ukiah resident.)

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GREAT DAY IN ELK 2025

The 49th annual Great Day in Elk will be held on Saturday, August 23, from noon until dusk, a benefit for the Greenwood Community Center.

The noontime parade will travel through downtown Elk to the community center for the day’s festivities. All afternoon there will be games and contests with prizes, do-it-yourself crafts projects for children, plus a greased pole with a $100 bill at the top.

This year’s live entertainment features belly dancing and live music by 2nd Hand Grass. There will also be a silent auction, a cake auction and a raffle. Food and drinks will be served all afternoon

For this year’s dinner, Chris of Mendocino’s Gnar Bar will be serving up his udon noodles with spicy chicken or tofu from 4 to 7.

The little coastal village of Elk is located five miles south of Highway 128 on Highway 1. For more information email Mea Bloyd at [email protected] or visit the Elk community website — www.elkweb.org. Please leave dogs at home.

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105 YEARS OF WOMEN'S VOTE (and look where it’s got us)

A celebration of women gaining the right to vote 105 years ago, and the suffragettes who struggled for decades to make that goal happen, will be held at the Kelly House in Mendocino on Sunday, August 24th. The parade will gather on the front lawn and begin at Noon. A program will follow at 12:30 on the lawn at Kelly House, where the parade will also end. En Period costume is encouraged, as well as bringing a chair and/or blanket for lawn seating.

The keynote speaker is California State Treasurer Fiona Ma, who manages one of the world's fourth largest economies. Devreaux Baker, Mendocino County Poet Laureate will read from her work, Natalie Rogers, Santa Rosa City Council will speak and Mendocino Women’s Choir will offer choral music.

Sponsoring organizations include American Association of University Women, Cloud Forest Institute, League of Women Voters and Mendocino Women's Political Coalition.

August 19th marks the 105th Anniversary of women gaining the right to vote at the federal level. State campaigns were part of the strategy for the federal Constitutional Amendment and women in California were among the first to achieve the vote at the state level in 1911, nine years before ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920.

Val Muchowski, https://mendocinowomen.org

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JIM ARMSTRONG:

I moved to Ukiah in 1970 and opened an account at the Mendocino County Savings Bank. In 1972, when I needed to borrow money for a house, they turned me down. I went to the Mendocino-Lake Savings and Loan Association, who happily made the loan on the property I still occupy. At that time, they were on the SW corner of State and Gobbi.

I have maintained accounts there since as they have gone through several name changes, the latest this week to Columbia Bank.

After Mendo-Lake, it was Redwood Empire and most recently Humboldt Bank and Umpqua Bank, now on State across from the Ukiah Theater.

I am trying to recall what other names came in between.

Anyone? Thanks.

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CATCH OF THE DAY, Friday, August 15, 2025

DUSTIN ALLEN, 35, Willits. Under influence.

CHRISTOPHER BECK, 28, Ukiah. Controlled substance, probation revocation.

GERALD COLLINS III, 46, San Jose/Ukiah. Failure to appear.

DEMETRIUS COX, 40, Quincy, Florida/Ukiah. DUI causing bodily injury, suspended license for DUI.

MELISSA CROW, 37, Willits Failure to appear, probation revocation.

SKYLAR DOTY, 28, Redwood Valley. DUI.

ROLAND ESKIND JR, 55, Ukiah. Parole violation.

LAUREN GRACE, 28, Pine Grove/Ukiah. DUI-any drug, paraphernalia.

NICOLE HAWKINS, 39, Covelo. Controlled substance for sale.

ALEXIS LOPEZ, 24, Fort Bragg. Probation revocation, resisting.

CHRISTOPHER LOPEZ, 35, Ukiah. Unspecified offense.

JOSE MORA, 50, Stockton/Ukiah. DUI, suspended license for DUI.

ROBERT TICER, 64, Ukiah. Controlled substance, under influence.

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A DYING CITY

Editor:

We moved to Santa Rosa in 2010 to be closer to our kids and grandkids in the Bay Area. Our house burned in the 2017 firestorm. We saw the unhoused everywhere, still see them everywhere, a city and county government frozen by NIMBY resistance to any adequate and affordable housing for teachers and nurses driving people away, a business policy of building only for the wealthy. We see schools closing from falling populations, job losses, now reactionary fencing erected to lock kids inside and keep the public out. Santa Rosa seems to be dying, crimped by pessimistic thinking, fear, disdain for working populations and timid, unimaginative leadership. The message to those who can: move away.

Terry Rowan

Santa Rosa

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MEMO OF THE AIR: Good Night Radio all night Friday night on KNYO and KAKX!

Soft deadline to email your writing for tonight's (Friday night's) MOTA show is 5pm or so. If that's too soon, send it any time after that and I'll read it next Friday. That's fine. There's no pressure.

Memo of the Air: Good Night Radio is every Friday, 9pm to 5am PST on 107.7fm KNYO-LP Fort Bragg and KNYO.org. The first three hours of the show, meaning till midnight, are simulcast on KAKX 89.3fm Mendocino.

Plus you can always go to https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com and hear last week's MOTA show. By Saturday night I'll put up the recording of tonight's show. You'll find plenty of other educational amusements there to educate and amuse yourself with until showtime, or any time, such as:

What a glacial lake outburst flood looks like. This is not last week's glacial lake outburst flood, but a much smaller, browner one from five years ago. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDPbtP-0AW8

Just a tire rolling for miles through the desert, accompanied by Enya. It's nice. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLpQ5bcxouw

And Craig Stehr often sends me links to video of crowds in India chanting along with amplified sitar, or to this or that very old greasy little bald man, or a squishy-wiggly New York Jewish-looking man, or a tall marionette-like Swedish fellow with a knife-edge nose and a great shock of thick white hair, sitting on the floor addressing the issue of how nothing matters, do you see now (long pause), it is all illusion (long pause), do you hear that which I am telling to you (long pause), and so on. But this band's act is cute and fun. More like this, please: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qybd7xMNgQ

Marco McClean, [email protected], https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com

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GIANTS MAKE NOISE but losing streak hits 6 vs Rays; Casey Schmitt hurt

by Susan Slusser

In the first three innings Friday, the San Francisco Giants scored more runs than they had in any of the previous six games on the homestand — in fact, they outscored their previous five games combined.

Their luck these days is such that Tampa Bay came back to tie things up three innings in a row and the Giants loused up a bases-loaded, no outs situation in the eighth. The Rays did not follow suit: With men at at the corners and one out in the ninth, Yandy Diaz sliced an RBI single to right to send in Chandler Simpson for Tampa Bay’s first lead of the night and the eventual 7-6 win.

“We can’t get our timing right with anything,” manager Bob Melvin said. “Yeah, we had a nice little lead early on, scored runs early in the game, added on, something we haven’t done, but we just gave up too many runs again.”

Failing to get shutdown innings was the killer. “Those are demoralizing, especially here, when we have a lead at home,” Melvin said. “It’s something we’ve been able to finish off in the past. Right now, it just feels like we can’t get a break.”

San Francisco has lost 14 of the past 15 games at Oracle Park to match a low point only done once before in a single season in team history; the Giants last had a stretch like that at home in 1901. They’ve lost six in a row to match their longest losing streak of the season and are now a season-worst four games under .500 at 59-63.

“Obviously, we’re going through a rough patch,” starter Landen Roupp said. “Every baseball team goes through it, but we got to figure out a way to get out of it, because none of this is fun. Losing isn’t fun, and we want to play better for the fans.”

Closer Randy Rodriguez hit Nick Fortes, the Rays’ catcher and No. 9 hitter, to open the ninth, and after Simpson singled, the Giants played the infield in. Simpson stole second and Brandon Lowe’s fielder’s choice bouncer to second wound up eliminating Fortes; catcher Patrick Bailey chased him back to third where Simpson was already standing. Diaz, though, finished the job with his second RBI single of the game.

Giants shortstop Willy Adames set the early tone in the first when, with two outs, he walked, stole second and scored on Dom Smith’s base hit. Jung Hoo Lee followed that same playbook leading off the next inning and he came around on Christian Koss’ double down the right-field line, then Heliot Ramos drove in Koss with a double.

The Rays tied it up with two runs in the third off Roupp, and Adames responded with a homer to center leading off the bottom of the inning, while Smith doubled, Koss walked and both scored on Bailey’s double.

Roupp, back off the IL after missing three starts with right elbow inflammation, pitched better than his line suggested; but he left with two on and no outs in the fourth. Both runners scored, one on a groundout and another on Simpson’s two-run single as Gage allowed his first run in 18⅔ innings and 17 games this season.

“It’s good to be back and get the start tonight, but the guys put up six runs, way more than enough to win a game, and I kind of just kept the Rays in it the entire time I was out there,” Roupp said. “I’ve just got to be better.”

Casey Schmitt, who’d been expected to hold down third while Matt Chapman is on the IL with right hand soreness, was hit on the elbow in the eighth and left the game; Melvin said X-rays were negative but Schmitt might miss a few days with a right forearm contusion.

Edwin Uceta then gave up a single to Lee and hit Koss, but Bailey lined out (“Right at the shortstop,” Melvin said. “Usually those go through.”) Drew Gilbert hit into a fielder’s choice that erased Tyler Fitzgerald at the plate and Ramos hit a bouncer to third.

Should Schmitt miss any time, Koss can play third — and so, too, can Rafael Devers, who’s learning to play first and improving at the spot daily. Koss moved from second to third after Schmitt left while Fitzgerald, who ran for Schmitt, played second.

In the middle innings, things turned into a Seymour showcase. (What is the collective noun for Seymours? A swarm?) There were three, including first baseman Bob Seymour, making his debut with the Rays, and relievers Ian Seymour, who gave up Bailey’s two-run double, and Carson Seymour. Carson Seymour walked Bob Seymour in the fifth, but the rookie didn’t give up a run in his 1⅔ innings. Carson Seymour said he played with Bob and against Ian in the Cape Cod League; he likes to joke that Bob is his brother but none of them are related.

Despite the Giants’ second-half plummet, the team is still drawing, with 34,172 attending Friday night’s loss.

“Obviously, we haven’t been able to get much going, especially at home,” Chapman said while discussing his injury after the game. “I feel bad for our fans, because they come out here and they support us every single night. They pay their own money to come see us, and we haven’t been playing good baseball for them. Regardless if we win or lose, they stay all game. It’s packed. So everybody here feels that we want to win for a million reasons, the fans being one of them.”

(sfchronicle.com)

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HERE’S WHAT I DON’T GET: Trump’s been sitting on the Epstein Files this whole time and every time someone brings it up there’s suddenly some kind of brand new emergency: Putin gets to keep part of Ukraine, job numbers are “fake,” let’s investigate Letitia James, investigate Jack Smith. It’s like, Dude, just release the files. If your name’s not in there, you’d think you’d want everybody to see them, right? But instead, it’s constant shiny distractions, while the one thing that matters just stays locked up. Look, man, if you still think he’s playing 4D chess, I hate to break it to you, but the guy’s barely playing checkers and he’s eating the pieces. I mean, c’mon, how much horseshit before you realize your Alpha Male is just an 80-year-old dude with early dementia spray-tanning his face at 3 AM while rage tweeting about Rosie.

– Joe Rogan

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JEFFREY ST. CLAIR: As a naive country kid from the glacier-smoothed farmlands of central Indiana, I arrived in DC in 1977, lived in the District through 1982 and commuted back there to work from Baltimore for another year.

DC was a much rougher place and poorer, though more vibrant, city in the 70s and 80s than it is now that it’s been almost completely gentrified. I didn’t have a car, so I rode the Metro, took the bus, or walked everywhere. I went all over town at all hours, from Tenley Circle to Adams Morgan to Anacostia, often late at night going to clubs to hear bands, going to and from the libraries at Georgetown or Catholic because AU’s was so shitty, working at Blues Alley and a movie theater deep down Connecticut Avenue, and later giving talks and attending organizing meetings for the Freeze Campaign.

In all of those hundreds of trips downtown, I had two “violent” encounters. As a freshman at AU, I was aggressively propositioned in the bathroom of the Rayburn Building by a staffer for a Georgia congressman, who then stalked me back on campus and made harassing and obscene calls to the dorm phone at Hughes Hall for a couple of weeks. The second incident occurred six years later, when I was grabbed from behind, thrown to the sidewalk and kicked repeatedly by two Caucasian men in trench coats after giving a talk at GW against the Reagan arms buildup. They didn’t take my wallet, but they did warn me to “keep my fucking mouth shut.”

I was out for a couple of minutes when a 70-plus-year-old black man bent down and helped me up. His name was Jerome. He walked me the three blocks down H Street and up 23rd Street, where I got patched up in the same Emergency Room that had treated Reagan after he was shot by John Hinckley a couple of months earlier. Jerome told me he’d been sleeping in different city parks since he was evicted from his apartment and now “Reagan is trying to evict us from the streets.” In all my years in DC, Black people treated me only with acts of kindness, not violence. What would you expect from the city of Frederick Douglass and Duke Ellington?

Meanwhile, inside the White House during those years, all sorts of felonious acts and constitutional villainy were being plotted by the likes of Cap Weinberger, Bill Casey, Robert Macfarland and Oliver North.

The real criminals in DC today, who are dangers to the Republic worthy of sending SEAL Team Six to suppress, are the lobbyists for the tobacco, financial, oil, insurance, coal, nuclear, Pharma, and weapons industries (not to mention AIPAC) who have corrupted our political system and profited from using the federal government to inflict death and misery around the globe. Trump is using racial stereotypes to scare his 70+ demographic on Fox News and manufacture a crisis that doesn’t exist so that he can use his Praetorian Guard to shield and distract attention from those who are looting the public estate for private gain.

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Meet the people in charge of the feds seizing control of DC:

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ON-LINE COMMENTS OF THE DAY

(1) Adults can do what they want but leave the children alone!

And tell the truth — so called “gender affirming care” is, in fact, the chemical and surgical mutilation of children —including the removal of healthy genitals and cutting off the healthy breasts of teenage girls.

Instead of standing up to the radical trans activist agenda the Humboldt BOS has unanimously embraced it — they are not fit to serve and all should be recalled.

Any so called professional aiding or abetting the chemical and surgical mutilation of children should have their credentials revoked and be prosecuted for child abuse.

Children who have “gender dysphoria” need counseling — they don’t need genital mutilation pushed by unscrupulous “professionals” pushing a radical trans activist agenda.

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(2) Exactly. So, I have heard this example: A child comes to their parents and say, “Arrr! I’m a pirate! Mommy, Daddy, I’m a pirate!! You have to call me a pirate from now on!!”

“Okay, honey! That’s great!! You ARE our little pirate! Nobody better argue with you about that!! So, just to support you, we’re going to take you to the doctor and have your eye put out so you can wear a patch! Won’t that be great? After that we’ll have your leg cut off so you will have a real pirate peg leg! We hear you and believe you when you say you are a pirate, and we’ll help you be just that!!

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PERFECT DAY

Just a perfect day
drink sangria in a park
and then later
when it gets dark we go home
Just a perfect day
feed animals in the zoo
and then later a movie, too
and then home

Oh it's such a perfect day
I'm glad I spend it with you
oh such a perfect day
you just keep me hangin on

just a perfect day
problems are left to know
Weekenders all night long
it's such fun
just a perfect day
you make me forget myself
I thought I was someone else
someone good

— Lou Reed

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“DO YOU KNOW how long a year takes when it's going away?” Dunbar repeated to Clevinger. “This long.” He snapped his fingers. “A second ago you were stepping into college with your lungs full of fresh air. Today you're an old man.”

“Old?” asked Clevinger with surprise. “What are you talking about?”

“Old.”

“I'm not old.”

“You're inches away from death every time you go on a mission. How much older can you be at your age? A half minute before that you were stepping into high school, and an unhooked brassiere was as close as you ever hoped to get to Paradise. Only a fifth of a second before that you were a small kid with a ten-week summer vacation that lasted a hundred thousand years and still ended too soon. Zip! They go rocketing by so fast. How the hell else are you ever going to slow down?” Dunbar was almost angry when he finished.

“Well, maybe it is true,” Clevinger conceded unwillingly in a subdued tone. “Maybe a long life does have to be filled with many unpleasant conditions if it's to seem long. But in that event, who wants one?”

“I do,” Dunbar told him.

“Why?” Clevinger asked.

“What else is there?”

— Joseph Heller, ‘Catch 22’

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LEAD STORIES, SATURDAY'S NYT

Trump Backs Off Cease-Fire Demand in Ukraine War, Aligning With Putin

After Alaska Summit, Europeans Worry Trump Will Pressure Ukraine

No Deal, but No Consequence for Putin

6 Takeaways From Trump’s Meeting With Putin

Trump Administration Retreats From Attempt to Widen Control of D.C. Police

Where D.C. Crime Is Bad, Residents Question Trump’s Motives

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NO DEAL, AND NO ANSWERS, after brief Trump-Putin talks on Ukraine in Alaska

US president claims ‘great progress’ with Russian leader but ends press conference abruptly without taking questions

by David Smith

Donald Trump left more questions than answers on Friday as he claimed “great progress” in his high-stakes summit with Vladimir Putin but said that no deal had been reached to end Russia’s war on Ukraine.

“I believe we had a very productive meeting,” the US president said at a joint press conference in Anchorage, Alaska. “There were many, many points that we agreed on.”

But, Trump cautioned: “There’s no deal until there’s a deal. I will call up Nato … I’ll of course call up [Ukraine’s] President Zelenskyy and tell him about today’s meeting.”

The two leaders lavished praise on each other but offered no details of the nearly three-hour meeting and took no questions from reporters.

Putin, speaking through an interpreter, described Trump’s efforts on Ukraine as “precious” and, suggested the two leaders had hammered out “an understanding”. He urged Europe to “not throw a wrench in the works” and “not use backroom dealings” to torpedo it.

Putin said that he agreed that Ukraine’s security must be guaranteed – but also said that the “root causes” of the conflict must be resolved. Those “root causes” have previously included his demands for Ukraine’s formal renunciation of Nato membership as well as its “denazification” – a vague set of demands that in practice amount to the removal of Zelenskyy.

Zelenskyy and European allies might be alarmed by Trump’s body language and deferential attitude toward Putin, whom he welcomed warmly at an Alaskan air force base and allowed to ride in the presidential limousine known as “the beast”.

Trump told reporters: “I’ve always had a fantastic relationship with President Putin – with Vladimir.”

As the press conference ended Putin suggested their next meeting might take place in Moscow, and dozens of reporters shouted questions in vain. The US president, who can typically never resist a free-wheeling press conference, left the stage without answering any of them.

The two leaders disembarked their planes at 11.08am local time at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, a cold war-era air force base on the outskirts of Anchorage, Alaska.

The friendly, tactile body language that followed offered a stark contrast to Trump’s shakedown of Zelenskyy, in the Oval Office in February.

Trump and Putin walked down red carpets that had been rolled up to their respective planes and met where the carpets came to a T, with Trump arriving first and clapping as Putin approached.

The men shared a warm handshake and what appeared to be some lighthearted banter. Trump gave Putin a friendly tap on the arm. Putin grinned and pointed skyward while their hands were still clasped.

The pair walked together towards a platform bearing a sign that read Alaska 2025 as B-2s and F-22s – military aircraft designed to oppose Russia during the cold war – flew over to mark the moment.

Trump and Putin stood looking towards the media but did not respond to shouted questions including: “President Putin, will you stop killing civilians?” The Russian president, who is wanted by the international criminal court, appeared to shrug.

Putin then joined Trump in the presidential limousine nicknamed “the beast” – a rare privilege for allies and adversaries alike – and could be seen laughing with glee.

The men then sat together in a conference room with their respective delegations, seated to the side in front of a blue backdrop that had the words “Pursuing Peace” printed on it several times. Trump was joined by the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, and special envoy Steve Witkoff, and Putin by his foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, and foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov.

The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said the previously planned one-on-one meeting between Trump and Putin would be a three-on-three negotiation. That marked a shift from a 2018 meeting in Helsinki, when Trump and Putin first met privately just with their interpreters for two hours.

Critics say that, by bringing Putin on to US soil for the first time in a decade, the president has given him the legitimacy he craves after he became a global pariah following his invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

European allies fear that the notoriously mercurial Trump might sell out Ukraine by essentially freezing the conflict with Russia and recognising – if only informally – Russian control over one-fifth of Ukraine.

Trump sought to assuage such concerns as he boarded Air Force One, saying he would let Ukraine decide on any possible territorial swaps. “I’m not here to negotiate for Ukraine, I’m here to get them at a table,” he said.

Asked what would make the meeting a success, he told reporters: “I want to see a ceasefire rapidly … I’m not going to be happy if it’s not today … I want the killing to stop.”

On his way to Alaska, Trump sat for an interview on Air Force One with Fox News Channel’s Bret Baier. In a clip posted online, he said he thought the meeting would “work out very well – and if it doesn’t, I’m going to head back home real fast.”

“I would walk, yeah,” he added, after a follow-up question.

Any success is far from assured because Russia and Ukraine remain far apart in their demands for peace. Putin has long resisted any temporary ceasefire, linking it to a halt in eastern arms supplies and a freeze on Ukraine’s mobilisation efforts, which are conditions rejected by Kyiv and its western allies.

Trump previously characterised the summit as “really a feel-out meeting”. But he has also warned of “very severe consequences” for Russia if Putin does not agree to end the war.

Trump said earlier in the week there was a 25% chance that the summit would fail but also floated the idea that, if the meeting succeeds, he could bring Zelenskyy to Alaska for a subsequent, three-way meeting.

European allies also have concerns that Trump could be tempted by economic incentives and potential deals. On Friday, the Reuters news agency reported that the US has had internal discussions on using Russian nuclear-powered icebreaker vessels to support the development of gas and LNG projects in Alaska.

(TheGuardian.com)

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