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MAJOR COASTAL FLOODING will be possible today and Saturday during high tides. Bouts of moderate to locally heavy rain and gusty winds are forecast to continue this weekend and likely next week. (NWS)
STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): When did it rain 1.44" in the last 24 hours, I sure did not hear it ? A partly cloudy 49F this Saturday morning on the coast. After a lull to start the day the rain & wind return by noon today & overnight. Rain continues mostly thru Wednesday before skies start to dry out finally about Thursday.
LAFEVER INVOKES SHIELD LAW
Court review underway over access to unpublished journalistic materials
by Elise Cox
Journalist and high school teacher Matt LaFever has filed a lawsuit against the State of California and the Ukiah Police Department, according to court sources familiar with the filing.
LaFever was arrested on a misdemeanor allegation of annoying or molesting a minor, a charge defined under California law. He is represented by Sonoma County defense attorney Orchid Vaghti. The Mendocino County District Attorney’s Office has not filed criminal charges in the case.
District Attorney David Eyster said in an interview that a report published Friday by the Berkeley-based Mendocino Voice stating that he planned to hold a closed-to-the-public arraignment on Monday was inaccurate.
Eyster said he is not personally handling the LaFever matter, having assigned it to another prosecutor, but said he believes a closed arraignment would likely not be lawful.
U.S. Supreme Court precedent establishes a strong presumption of public access to criminal proceedings. In the 1980 case Richmond Newspapers v. Virginia, Chief Justice Warren Burger wrote that, “Absent an overriding interest articulated in findings, the trial of a criminal case must be open to the public.”
Court records show that on Dec. 2, Vaghti filed a motion seeking the appointment of a special master. The motion was approved on Dec. 17 by Mendocino County Superior Court Judge Keith Faulder. Vaghti declined to comment for this story.
The California Shield Law, which is codified in the state constitution, protects journalists from being compelled to disclose confidential sources or unpublished materials, including notes, photographs, and digital communications such as messages exchanged on platforms like Snapchat.
While the shield law most commonly arises when a reporter is covering a case, courts have recognized that shield law protections may still apply when law enforcement seeks access to a journalist’s unpublished materials, even when the journalist is the subject of an investigation or a party to a case.
According to attorneys for the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, the California Supreme Court has held that prosecutors in criminal cases do not possess constitutional or statutory rights sufficient to override the reporter’s privilege.
In a 2000 decision, the California Court of Appeal, First Appellate District, Division Two described the shield law’s protection as “virtually absolute,” ruling that it “need never yield to any superior constitutional right of the People.” The case involved a Marin Independent Journal reporter held in contempt for refusing to disclose unpublished interview material in a homicide investigation.
Eyster said any potential charging decision in the LaFever matter will be deferred until the special master completes and submits a report.
(Mendolocal.news)
SUPES SHOULD LISTEN TO THEIR CONSTITUENTS
To the Editor:
This letter is another viewpoint in response to Mark Scaramella’s article “Is Supervisor Mulheren too thin-skinned?” published recently. Facebook comments by Supervisor Mulheren highlighted by Mr. Scaramella gave us pause, because they appear to contradict her recent and past actions and public statements.
In a video post on October 29th, Ms. Mulheren is quoted as saying, “I have just learned a lot about many topics over the last 10 years. I think that when elected officials get locked into a point and say something like, I will never vote for XYZ, you are doing a disservice to the community.” We wholeheartedly agree.
Yet on Sept 23, 2025, Ms. Mulheren voted against a second application from Willits citizens to establish a Cannabis Prohibition (CP) zone; they were seeking to opt out of cannabis cultivation in their neighborhood. Prior to her vote she stated: “I am going to be consistent with what I’ve said before on these prohibition zones. The use of combining districts for prohibition is not a policy that I support. These types of ordinances become a popularity contest…….”
The “popularity contest” comment gives the impression she does not consider each application on its merits, but instead judges them through the lens of political popularity, or perhaps her own personal biases. Her voting record hints that she will never vote for a Cannabis Prohibition zone, regardless of the majority of property owners in a particular area requesting it.
It is written into the county ordinance that if a cannabis grow creates nuisances, citizens have the right to request a cannabis free zone, whether there are active grows or not. In this case there were not, so no business would be affected. The citizens were attempting to protect their environment and community from future grows being allowed in. This second Willits application ultimately passed 3-2 with Supervisors Mulheren and Williams dissenting.
We do commend Ms. Mulheren, however, for taking the time to tour our beloved Redwood Valley at our invite this past year. We also wish to publicly thank Supervisors Cline, Haschak and Norvell for taking the tour and listening to our concerns about the future of our neighborhoods. During the tour with Ms. Mulheren we asked her why she appears so pro-cannabis as evidenced by her voting record consistently being in the industry’s favor. Her reply (paraphrasing), “I will always be pro-business”.
The problem with this is she appears to be locked into favoring business interests — including commercial cannabis — over the valid concerns of residents who wish to protect their neighborhoods from businesses which negatively impact them. Elected officials who consistently favor one segment of society (industries) over another (residential communities), especially when residents seek to protect and preserve their quality of life by using the tools provided in the county ordinance, are doing a disservice to the taxpayers.
In fairness, one Supervisor declined our invitation to view Redwood Valley — not once, but twice. Mr. Williams, we believe you did our community a disservice by not finding the time to take our tour and listen to us this past year. Your position wields you the power to impact the lives of the public in districts other than your own. We are sure you expect your colleagues on the Board to carefully weigh any issues which may affect your district. It would appear, too, that you have historically voted in lock step with Supervisor Mulheren, certainly as pertains to cannabis issues. Please correct us if we are mistaken.
We urge all our elected officials: if you are voting on issues from another district, give serious, unbiased consideration to the expressed wishes of that district’s residents. Evaluate the preponderance of evidence presented before casting your vote. And when citizens extend a genuine invitation to listen — as we did — make a stronger effort to accept. You should listen to all Mendocino County citizens.
To fail to do so, in our view, is a grave dereliction of your sworn duty. As Ms. Mulheren herself aptly stated, it is “ a disservice to the community.”
Frances Owen, Patricia Ris-Yarbrough, Chris Boyd
Concerned Redwood Valley Citizens
WHAT WASHED ASHORE IN 2025?
by Carol Brodsky
Last week, at the Noyo Center Marine Field Station, Sarah Grimes, Marine Mammal Stranding Coordinator provided a report to approximately 50 guests of what and who washed ashore in 2025. This marks the 11th year that the Center has been providing this information to the public.
Grimes noted that all marine mammal stranding activities were conducted under authorization by the National Marine Fisheries Service through a Stranding Agreement issued to the California Academy of Sciences.
Every year I like to do this presentation review of what’s happened through the year,” she began. “Dealing with deceased animals can be tough, but what we do is go the next step - be detectives - and figure out as best we can what happened to the animal. It helps to make the sad part easier.”
Grimes’ report covered the area from Gualala to Westport, but she also included information on animals that washed up in the Bay Area. “We work very closely with the California Academy of Sciences. They are part of our extended family, as well as people in Sonoma County, who also respond. The West Coast Stranding Network is one big stretch of coastline, from Alaska to Baja, and the database created from our collective input tells the whole story.” The work of locating, identifying and determining the fate of animals washed ashore is done largely by a dedicated team of volunteers.
Grimes noted that 2025 had a very different profile from 2024 and years prior. “We had only 65 animals this year - 49 of which were sea lions. Less dead animals is always a good thing, but we’re only one part of the larger coastal story.” She noted that a variety of animals can potentially wash up - from pyrosomes- strange, pink rubbery creatures that float in colonies, to cetaceans, porpoises, eared seals- which include the California Sea Lion, Steller Sea Lion, Guadalupe Fur Seal and the Northern Fur Seal, to the true seals, which include the Pacific Harbor Seal and the Elephant Seal. “Only 11 Harbor Seals washed up this year,” she noted, “which is down from years past.”
This was a big year for deaths of California Sea Lions attributed to Leptospirosis - a disease that affects the kidneys. “This was happening up and down the coast,” Grimes noted. “We were receiving one to two calls per day, particularly affecting younger Sea Lions, and later in the season we had a few older Sea Lions with the same disease.” The teams recorded mostly males with the disease.
Interns and volunteers collected a large Sea Lion near Jefferson Way. “They collected the skull. You could see the Leptospirosis in the kidneys. It had an enlarged heart, and to add insult to injury, it had a really horrible diseased tooth. It was a very sick animal. In this case, it was probably better that he passed on.”
“A lot of what we do is determine species and gender, sometimes by shape of the teeth, Grimes continued. “Harbor Seals have mountainous teeth. It’s often difficult to tell species just by the coat. With gender, it’s not always easy. Sometimes the animals are very scavenged.” Male pinnipeds have a penis bone called a baculum. “When we find one, it goes into the collection with the animal. An animal without a baculum may be a female or it may have been scavenged.”
Fur on the fore flippers can help determine species. “The Guadalupe Fur Seal has fur right to tip of flipper, and the Northern Fur Seal’s fur goes about halfway down. We saw a few Fur Seals on our Noyo pelagic trips. I love it when I see only live Fur Seals,” she smiled.
A Juvenile Humpback Whale- an endangered species- was collected in October. “It was the second one of the year found on Manchester Beach- a young male. Our team and folks from the California Academy of Sciences hiked a few miles to get to that whale.”
A 3-day investigation yielded some interesting findings. “You don’t always figure out what happens to an animal, but this one had a story.” Grimes showed some photos of the discovery and subsequent examination of the whale. “There’s a very large wound near the eye, wounds on the tail and smaller, crescent-shaped wounds- a lot of bite wounds. Part of the tongue was missing. The question was: did it get bit, and is that why it died? That’s where we get into trying to figure out what happened.”
The team peeled the blubber layer back to expose muscle underneath. “It was brown, and had no integrity. Something hit it hard. We could see three big puncture wounds in a row.” The appearance of the bite wounds, the measurements, the missing tongue and the spacing of wounds all pointed to an attack by a Killer Whale.
“Why do Killer Whales eat the tongue? They don’t eat the whole whale. They eat the choice bits,” Grimes continued. “In Alaska, they’ll move a carcass into a protected bay to tuck away for later. To me, a death by Killer Whale kill is a lot easier to take than a boat strike. Things are as they should be, in some sense. Yet, they are incredibly beautiful creatures, and it was hard not to cry.”
Sue Pemberton is a Marine Mammal Stranding Coordinator for the California Academy of Sciences. “Sue trained me. She is a next-level detective,” Grimes notes. Pemberton joined the meeting via Zoom, discussing the challenges she faced when land managers denied the Academy team permission to do a necropsy on a Pacific Grey Whale.
“The whale stranded during the mass casualty event that was taking place in San Francisco Bay. Because of its proximity to a hotel, we weren’t able to do a full examination, but the story was still there, so we set out to examine external areas as much as we could. Three things on this whale told us exactly what happened. There were telltale injuries consistent with Orca predation. Sloughed off skin revealed a half-circle shaped bruise on the abdomen- a classic pummel-punch wound from orca’s nose. Killer whales pummel animals to death. I started removing skin, looking for that injury. Another injury included the tip of tongue removed. We had to distinguish bite holes from shark scavenging. There were rake marks on the fluke and blowhole, all indicative of an Orca strike. Even though we were not able to do a full necropsy, we got the answer of how it died,” Pemberton explained.
“Persistence and learning go together, and are part of the importance of doing this work,” said Grimes, noting the San Francisco team responded to 20 grey whales this past year. “There were almost none up here.” Many the whales examined bore evidence of blunt-force injuries, which may be indicative of a ship-strike. “We’re peeling back, looking, investigating and doing next- level observation.”
Another interesting event occurred when the protecting of one species interfered with the investigation of another. In May, a Risso’s Dolphin was located in the midst of the Snowy Plover nesting area. “Initially, we were not able to get a permit to do work in that area, because the activity could risk the lives of the 2,000 plovers nesting on our coast. We collected measurements but no parts. A month later, we got permission to collect the skull. Our team carried a 70-pound dolphin head for two miles to the car, across the dunes. The animal was about 10 feet long. We have no idea why it died. They are stunning animals.”
Grimes lauds the work of two interns- Zane Colfax and Charles, who have become invaluable members of the Noyo Center Team. Colfax- another of the legendary Anderson Valley family who made homeschooling a priority has been accepted to his first-choice college- Carleton College in Minnesota. Following attendance at Mendocino College, Charles is a student at UC Davis. Both are majoring in Environmental Science.
“It took handling lots of urchin poop for these young men to become who they are today,” Grimes laughs. “They collected a humpback whale that had died offshore in tidepools. There was no way to get to it the first week. The Mendonoma Team responded and collected a rack of baleen. We wanted to see if we could get skin for DNA testing. These two interns scrambled in the rocks to reach the whale, which was a stinky, yucky mess. Getting that skin sample was incredibly important. They were definitely the heroes of the day. Not only are they willing to do anything; they are a joy to work with,” she continued.
A tagged Sea Lion was collected near Bowling Ball Beach. “He had been rescued in 2020 and had a facial injury back then. Once he was returned, he stayed out there lived his best life- a super-fascinating case.”
The team responded to more events: a collective response to a whale that landed near Sea Ranch. A discovery of a small “scrap” near Point Arena that will be tested for DNA and was probably a cetacean. A small Pacific White-Sided dolphin found on Manchester Beach via a Facebook photo. Eight suspected coyote kills - lower numbers than previous years.
Grimes recognized the work of Richard Millis, Field Station and Marine Mammal Collections Manager who along with running the evening’s slideshow takes a lead role in the collecting and processing of marine mammal specimens. “I couldn’t do this work without Richard.” She also thanked Village Vet in Mendocino for their radiographic support.
The work of the Noyo Center depends on volunteer beach surveyors, who scan the ocean and shoreline every two weeks. “They do incredible work,” says Grimes. “They look for turkey vultures and scan the horizon for floating whales or sea lions. Any time, day or night, please call us and we’ll get our team out asap.” The team also counts the number of bull kelp heads on shore. “We had 175 today.”
Though the center has been collecting data for over ten years, Grimes and the team are not ready to pronounce any specific changes affecting marine mammals. “Every year is different,” she notes.
Sue Pemberton notes that because of the warming sea surface temperature, fish migration patterns are changing, resulting in female sea lions taking longer foraging trips away from their pups. “We’re seeing smaller pups cumulatively.” Skulls of deceased animals are being collected, as she notes that sea lions are akin to the canaries in coal mines. “When things get rough, Guadalupe Fur Seals are the first to show signs.” Grimes notes, “If we continue to see more 60-degree ocean water, we’re all going to be in trouble.”
Sheila Semans, Noyo Center executive director notes the Bay Area is grappling with the increased number of whales feeding in the San Francisco Bay- multiplying the possibilities of whales being struck by boats. “No one wants to hit a whale or see one get caught in a crab pot. The whales are being documented through the work of the California Academy of Sciences so we can encourage people to slow down- to be aware there are whales in the Bay. Ferries are slowing down, but even spotters have a hard time seeing Gray Whales.” Many possible solutions are being discussed, including adding spotters to ferries, creating more eco-tourism opportunities or utilizing technology. She stresses that not every blunt force trauma event is caused by a ship strike. “It’s difficult to confirm ship strikes, so we must be careful about not pointing fingers.”
When mammals are collected, they go through a rigorous and quite odiferous process of removing the flesh. “The finished specimens are museum quality, and will be housed at the Cal Academy of Sciences forever,” says Grimes. “They are handled, prepped and documented properly. We’re so proud that Mendocino is represented in the collection.”
For more information on the Noyo Center, visit https://www.noyocenter.org.
(Ukiah Daily Journal)
THE TRUE STORY OF ‘BLACK BART,’ aka Charles Boles
Story by Thomas Duke, 1910
“Celebrated Criminal Cases of America”
Part II: Pacific Coast Cases
On August 12, 1877, the stage running from Fort Ross to Russian River was held up by a lone highwayman wearing a mask and exhibiting a shotgun. There were no passengers on the stage and after obtaining $325.00 from Wells-Fargo’s treasure box, the bandit very courteously bid the driver good-day and disappeared.
On July 28, 1878, the stage running between Quincy and Oroville was held up by a robber whose general appearance and conduct indicated that he was the same individual who committed the Russian River robbery. On this occasion he obtained jewels and money valued at $600.00 from Wells-Fargo’s treasure box.
After the stage departed, he picked up a Wells-Fargo waybill and dedicated the following verse to the company, which was afterward found at the scene of the holdup:
“Here I lay me down to sleep,
To wait the coming morrow,
Perhaps success, perhaps defeat
And everlasting sorrow.
Yet come what will—I’ll try it on,
My condition can’t be worse,
And if there’s money in that box
‘Tis money in my purse.
BLACK BART, P. 0. 8.”
As the mail was also robbed on this last occasion, the Federal government joined Wells, Fargo & Company in offering large rewards, but this did not stop “Black Bart,” for he held up two other stages within a few months afterward. The first was the stage running from Covelo to Ukiah and the second was on the road from Weaverville to Shasta.
On November 3, 1883, the twenty-eighth and last stage was held up by this lone and courteous bandit. On this date he stopped the stage running from Milton to Sonora, near Copperopolis. The driver, J. McConnell, was the only occupant, and the highwayman ordered him to unhitch the horses and hand out Wells-Fargo’s box, from which the robber took $4,100.00 in amalgam and $550.00 in gold coin.
At this stage of the proceedings, an Italian boy with a rifle carelessly thrown over his shoulder, came down the road. This seemed to alarm the robber, who grabbed his loot and ran. McConnell procured the rifle from the boy and fired several shots at the fleeing highwayman, who, in his haste, dropped a handkerchief on which was a laundry mark, “F. 0. X. 7.” This was the only clew as to his identity.
Captain Harry Morse took charge of the case. Working on the theory that the robber probably visited the country regions only for the purpose of committing these crimes and then probably enjoyed his ill-gotten gains in the metropolis, a search was made in the laundries in this city to ascertain who received laundry with this mark.
After a search of the entire city it was finally ascertained that T. C. Ware, a laundry agent on Bush Street near Montgomery, used this mark to designate a customer known as “Charles E. Bolton.”
Morse then ascertained that Mr. Bolton resided in room 40 at the Webb House, located at 27 Second Street, and that he posed as a mining man whose “interests” required him to make frequent trips to the mining regions. A “shadow” was placed on this building and Captain Morse made frequent visits to the laundry office.
One day while there, Mr. Bolton was seen approaching, and Ware agreed to introduce Morse to him, representing that he (Morse) was a mining man. When Bolton arrived, the introduction took place and Morse stated that he had some ore which he wished to have examined, and as Ware had stated that Bolton was a mining man, the latter agreed to accompany Morse for the purpose of making the examination, but when they reached Wells-Fargo’s office, Morse took him into Detective Thacker’s private room.
Bolton was about fifty years of age, immaculate in appearance and an extremely interesting conversationalist. When he learned the nature of the investigation he pretended to be indignant and threatened those who were detaining him.
A search was made of his room and a Bible was found in which was written : “To my beloved husband, Charles E. Boles.” Handkerchiefs similar to the one dropped were also found.
Boles was then taken to San Andreas, and after a severe examination he made a complete confession of the twenty-eight robberies he had committed.
He stated that his right name was Boles, and that he served in an Illinois regiment during the Civil War. He proudly boasted that he had resolved never to harm a human being, and that the shotgun which he invariably carried was as harmless as a broomstick, as it was never loaded. He then took the officers to the spot in the hills where he had buried the proceeds from the last robbery.
He pleaded guilty to the last robbery and on November 21, 1883, was sent to San Quentin for seven years.
During his visits to San Francisco between robberies, he ate at a restaurant patronized by a number of local detectives and frequently joked with them regarding the inability of the country officers to capture “Black Bart.”
In 1888 he was released and stated before leaving prison that he would commit no more crimes.
When asked if he would write any more poetry he replied : “Did you not hear me say I would commit no more crimes?”
Immediately after leaving San Quentin Boles came to San Francisco and, after calling on the officers who were instrumental in his conviction, he disappeared, never to be seen or heard of again.
(historicalcrimedetective.com)
CATCH OF THE DAY, Friday, January 2, 2026
ANNELISE BECK, 29, Willits. Failure to appear, probation revocation.
JAMES CLAUSEN, 55, Ukiah. Domestic battery.
ANGEL ECHEVERRIA-MARTINEZ, 23, Fort Bragg. Failure to appear.
HUGO GALLARDO, 38, Ukiah. DUI, no license.
VINCENT HERNANDEZ JR., 35, Ukiah. Concealed dirk-dagger, offense while on bail.
ZACHARY HOPKINS, 33, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol&drugs.
ELIZABETH JOHNSON-COSGROVE, 35, Ukiah. Probation revocation.
DAVID JOHNSTON, 74, Ukiah. Controlled substance with two or more priors, paraphernalia.
ANTOINE MOORE, 44, Ukiah. Probation violation, resisting.
STEVEN NOVOA, 45, Ukiah. Controlled substance for sale, paraphernalia, false compartment, probation revocation.
JOSHUA OUTTEN, 33, Fort Bragg. DUI with blood-alcohol over 0.15% with priors.
RODERICK WYNN, 35, Clearlake/Ukiah. Battery on peace officer, prior felony enhancement, resisting.
JONATHAN YOUNG, 45, Willits. Parole violation.
MEMO OF THE AIR: Good Night Radio all Friday night on KNYO and KAKX.
Soft deadline to email your writing for tonight's (Friday night's) MOTA show is six or eight. If that's too soon, send it any time after that and I'll read it next Friday.
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:
The Wizard of Oz and Other Trans Love Trips (full 1967 record album). Psychedelic, man. https://www.weirduniverse.net/blog/comments/the_wizard_of_oz_and_other_trans_love_trips
"The Making of The Wizard of Oz (1939) was a Shitshow." And the essayist doesn't even get into the Munchkin suicide (apocryphal), nor setting Margaret Hamilton on fire with a flashpot (painfully true). Judy Garland was on amphetamine diet pills and barbiturate sleepy pills the whole time, and was physically abused, and it wasn't all the studio's doing; her mother was the real witch, according to actual Judy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfWNUW1wTXw
And a video essay on the odd film Return To Oz (1985), which is Zane Whitener's pick for most faithful representation of L. Frank Baum's Oz. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnXjqhzbY1w
Marco McClean, [email protected], https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com
NORTHERN CALIFORNIA SEES KING TIDES RISE AGAIN, BOOSTED BY SUPER MOON
by Rick Hurd
A new round of king tides — higher-than-usual oceanic tides, caused by the moon’s alignment with the Earth — arrived Friday, coinciding with a set of storms that started to drop rain earlier in the week and won’t stop until Monday afternoon, according to the National Weather Service.
The region also saw king tides in early November, and another round of them in early December.
This week’s tidal event is expected to be in a class of its own. National Weather Service Meteorologist Roger Gass said Friday that areas of land that are normally dry could be under as much as 2½ feet of water.
The king tides are caused by the position of the moon and sun. According to experts, the higher tides come when the Earth, the moon and the sun all align in a straight line, bolstering the combined gravitational pulls of the moon and the sun.
These tides are receiving an extra boost because the full moon right now is a so-called “super moon,” when the moon is nearer the Earth during its orbit, experts said.
“This is going to be the maximum tide for the whole year,” meteorologist and weather consultant Jan Null said. “Everything is lining up at once. It’s not going to be end-of-the-world sorts of stuff. All of the lower-tier parking lots will probably be covered with water. Maybe some of the upper-tier ones, too.”
On Friday morning, that meant drivers had to navigate the entrance onto the westbound direction of the Bay Bridge during the commute with water from the San Francisco Bay flowing onto Interstate 80 near the metering lights and toll plaza.
The weather service issued a coastal flood warning along the San Francisco Bay Shoreline that’s in effect through 2 p.m. Sunday. Among the cities expected most to be affected by the king tides are San Francisco, Pacifica, Half Moon Bay and other communities along the coast in San Mateo County. Low-lying areas of Alameda, Contra Costa and Santa Clara counties also are in harm’s way, with those areas including parts of Berkeley, Richmond and San Pablo.
On Saturday, tides are expected to be at their highest from around 9:30 a.m. near Pillar Point Harbor to 10:30 a.m. further north in Marin, with measurements between about five and seven feet, according to the NWS.
The combination of king tides and crashing waves sent by stormy seas makes for a hazardous coastline.
“We aren’t any strangers to this,” Pacifica police spokesperson Capt. Bill Glasgo said Friday. “Where we get the issues are from the people who aren’t from here that come to witness (the waves). They stand close to the edge and the guard rails, and they get pummeled by the waves that come over. … Our community is well aware of these folks, and a lot of time, peer pressure and residents who are out and educate them are generally the best deterrent.”
The tides will be moving in amid rain that is expected to begin again Friday night and last into Saturday. A brief break will follow, before showers resume again on Sunday. Null said it’s likely that the places most susceptible to rain — the North Bay and Santa Cruz Mountains — could get as much as 4 inches of rain in a 96-hour period, while Alameda, Contra Costa and Santa Clara counties are more likely to receive 2 inches.
By 2 p.m. Friday, the tides and rain had combined to create issues in Marin County. Social media video showed free-flowing waters along streets in Mill Valley on Friday morning.
Flooding also affected traffic on westbound I-980 on the transition to southbound I-880 to the Jackson Street exit and on eastbound I-580 at the Berkeley Curve, the California Highway Patrol said.
Officials urged motorists to avoid driving past marked areas and to stay off the roads if they can. Beach-goers should stay away from the coastline, authorities said.
The extreme high water is expected to recede beginning Sunday, when weather experts said the official period for the maximum king tides ends.
(pressdemocrat.com)
THE SOLAR SOLUTION
Editor:
The only way to break PG&E’s monopoly status is to give every user equal opportunity to generate and use their own energy source. That’s called residential solar, and community solar power. Pass legislation that requires any commercial energy company to buy back power from residential solar at the same rate they charge same users. PG&E currently pays only $0.057 per kw for residential solar, and says that’s the same cost of their generation of solar power cost per kw. But why are they able to bill us for same energy at $0.32 per kw. Then they add numerous items like distribution, infrastructure, fine recovery, nuclear retirement and 12% ROI to investors.
Just think if 50% of San Francisco residents had their own solar power and batteries, the 130,000 residents would have not been in the dark for three days earlier this month.
Residential Solar costs PG&E nothing; the only thing it does is break PG&E’s monopoly.
Solar is safer, clean energy and protects the environment.
James Sandler
Pleasanton
I'VE LABORED LONG and hard for bread,
For honor and for riches
But on my corns too long you've tread,
You fine-haired sons-of-bitches.
— Black Bart
MISTAKEN IDENTITY
I like a French poet named Jacques Prévert. I have a few of his books in French and I have Ferlinghetti’s translations published by City Lights in 1952. Being in the mood for one the other day, I punched in “Jacques Prévert Poems.” The top entry was from allpoetry.com. The one beneath it caught my eye. It was from a university in New Zealand. Clicking on it produced an “AI Overview,” consisting of a brief biography and 12 poems translated by Alastair Campbell (whose name I didn’t know). I read them appreciatively.
Wondering if he had done more than these 12, I punched in “Alastair Campbell, Jacques Prévert.” An “AI Overview” appeared on the screen. It identified Alastair Campbell as “Tony Blair’s former press secretary,” and explained “While Alastair Campbell is best known as a political commentator, author, and podcaster (co-hosting The Rest is Politics), this connection highlights his literary side, showcasing his work as a translator for the influential French poet known for simple, poignant verses.”
Then it dawned on me: AI is likely to conflate me with the Fred Gardner who wrote for the Berkeley Gazette in the early ‘60s! My life and The Other FG’s overlapped more than the Alastair Campbells’ did!
Oi vey!
This Fred Gardner
GROUPS FILE LAWSUIT AGAINST SACRAMENTO COUNTY’S APPROVAL OF COYOTE CREEK SOLAR PROJECT THAT WOULD WIPE OUT 3,000 OLD GROWTH OAKS
by Dan Bacher
In late December, two environmental organizations, the California Native Plant Society and the Environmental Council of Sacramento, filed a lawsuit against the County of Sacramento for its recent approval of the Coyote Creek Agrivoltaic Ranch project. That initiative, also known as the CCAR, is slated for the rolling hills and grazing lands of eastern Sacramento County between Prairie City SVRA and the Deer Creek Hills Preserve.
The environmental groups cited “numerous deficiencies” in the project’s Final Environmental Impact Report (final EIR), including failure to sufficiently address the potential impacts to two streams that flow into Deer Creek, a tributary of the Cosumnes River and the last Sierra Nevada watershed river without a major storage dam on it. The plaintiffs also pointed to the loss of 3,493 trees from the project that will be incurred from “industrial-level repurposing” of the land.
DESRI, the ownership behind the proposal, describes the Coyote Creek Agrivoltaic Ranch as a “renewable energy project” that will “deliver significant economic and environmental benefits to Sacramento County and the greater region.” DESRI is an investor and operator of renewable energy projects across the United States.
In a statement, DESRI argued that “independent economic modeling” by Economic and Planning Systems has projected that construction activities and related purchases of local goods and services for the agrivoltaic ranch will inject more than $365 million into the Sacramento economy.
“A major share of these benefits will come from the project’s commitment to employ highly trained union labor,” the company stated. “Construction of the solar and battery energy storage system is expected to create up to 350 good-paying jobs during the buildout period.”…
“PEOPLE SLEEP PEACEABLY in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.”
— George Orwell
DISSATISFIED ON THE NORTHCOAST:
Been saying if for a few years…the middle class (what’s left of it) is getting squeezed more and more. Even the working class-lower middle class is getting taxed hard to pay for the non-workers and excessive costs of medical. The wealthy were getting taxed in CA (not enough federal) but then Newsom would throw that money away (Train to Nowhere, Homeless program that squandered billions, Cannabis Dept that gave it all away to corporate mega-farms, etc etc). I don’t blame them for leaving. I love the nature and climate here but I’d leave if I could afford to do so. Highest gas prices. Highest electrical rates. Highest sales tax. Highest auto insurance. Highest housing prices. To name the most prominent expenses…now the DEMs have invented the term “affordability crisis” but the crisis has existed for years and they are at least half of the problem!!
ALL THE DIFFICULT HOURS & MINUTES
All the difficult hours and minutes
are like salted plums in a jar.
Wrinkled, turn steeply into themselves,
they mutter something the color of sharkfins to the glass.
Just so, calamity turns toward calmness.
First the jar holds the umeboshi, then the rice does.
— Jane Hirshfield (2008)
ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY
If the goal was to reduce drug dependence, they would make quality rehab facilities free and readily available. Treating the addiction is the only way to get an addict off of drugs. And, as long as there is a demand for drugs, there will be people who will figure out a way to supply them.
Trump’s extrajudicial killings aren’t about reducing drugs – it’s pure showmanship and the natural result that happens when an impotent Congress refuses to rein in the actions of a petulant man-boy.
HUNTER & BILL ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL
Clinton is “liked, but not well liked,” and not even his best friends and allies believe anything he says. He has the sense of loyalty of a lizard with its tail broken off and the midnight taste of a man who might go on a double-date with the Rev. Jimmy Swaggart.
— Hunter S. Thompson
YOUR FRIENDLY LIBERAL NEIGHBORHOOD KU-KLUX-KLAN
Is there a klavern in your town? In your town?
If not, then why not have us down? Have us down?
You’ll never recognize us, there’s a smile upon our face,
We’re changing all our dirty sheets and a-cleaning up the place.
Yep, since we got a lawyer, and a public relations man,
We’re your friendly, liberal, neighborhood ku klux klan
Yes, we’re your friendly, liberal, neighborhood ku klux klan
Ever since we got that lawyer and that public relations man.
“Course we did shoot one reporter, but he was just obscene,
And you can’t call us no filthy names. What does anglo-saxon mean?
Allemande left, allemande right, the ladies’ auxiliary is meeting tonight.
“Cause the klan’s collecting so much cash
That now, by gum, we’re rich white trash.
Now we’ve heard it said our leadership’s not qualified to lead
Well, I’m telling you that just ain’t true, why three of them can read.
Take our grand exalted dragon, now some folks think he’s bad,
But you should meet his sweet old mother,
And her brother, who’s his dad.
Yes, there’re your friendly, liberal, neighborhood ku klux klan
And he’s gonna run for governor soon as he’s out of the can.
We’re all from fine old families, the pride of all these hills,
Yep, seven generations at the same illegal stills.
Had a little rally the other night, shot up town in a fury,
Luke’s arrested; pa’s on trial; and the rest of us are on the jury.
Now we’ve heard them call us deadbeats, and we’d like to say we’re not.
We’ll all stand on our record, and that’s one thing we’ve all got.
And we’ve only have that arsenal so you that won’t raise no fuss,
Find more similar lyrics on http://mp3lyrics.com/xf6o
And if you don’t like that then call the cops
‘Cause the chances are they’re us.
Yes, we’re your friendly, liberal, neighborhood ku klux klan
But somehow we went from the fire to the frying pan
We never learned to hold a job and we never learned to write
But boy we sure have learned the ropes
‘Cause we use them every night.
Now when congress calls you don’t get stuck,
Just start confessing and pass the buck.
The kludd blames the klaxon, the klaxon blames the kleagle,
The kleagle blames the grand imperial eagle.
The eagle blames the wizard, the wizard blames the dragon
The dragon gets the blame, but he’s just braggin’.
Now we’re out to show the congress, that we’re oh so nice and neat,
Why we never even take the fifth, ‘cause we drank that all last week
And you’ll never hear us shooting, or hanging people high
‘Cause we’re learning to respect the law and to have an alibi.
Oh-ho come, come, come, come
Come to the church in the wildwood
Oh come to the church in the vale.
And those dirty lying witnesses, lord, forgive them what they speak
We would go to church and pray for them, ‘cept we blew it up last week.
Yes, we’re your friendly, liberal, neighborhood ku klux klan
And we sure do thank that lawyer and that public relations man.
So we’re sorry that we hung them, but they did have quite a tan,
And it sure confused your friendly, liberal, misunderstood,
Your friendly neighborhood klan which says, what’s wrong with the hood?
Your friendly liberal, neighborhood ku klux
Grab your cadillac and head for the hills
— June Reizner (1964)
NO CHINESE TESLAS IN CALIFORNIA?
by Roland Li
China’s BYD has surpassed Tesla as the world’s best-selling electric carmaker. But not in America.
BYD cars aren’t sold in the U.S. due to a 100% tariff on electric cars imposed in 2024 by the Biden administration. Nonetheless, BYD — which stands for “Build Your Dreams” — surpassed Tesla in 2025 to become the top global seller, with 2.26 million vehicles sold. That was up 26% from 2024.
Tesla said on Friday that it had sold 1.64 million vehicles in 2025, down 8.6% from the prior year. It was the second straight year of declines. Fourth quarter deliveries were down 16% to 418,227 cars, compared to the prior year.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s support of President Donald Trump and work with the Department of Government Efficiency to slash the federal workforce ignited a backlash against the company last year. Protests, boycotts and defaced cars accompanied falling sales.
The Trump administration also ended a federal tax credit of up to $7,500 for electric vehicles at the end of September, further dampening demand.
Analysts at Cox Automotive said new U.S. electric vehicle sales plunged 41.2% in November compared to a year earlier, with brands including Rivian and Ford seeing even bigger drops than Tesla. Continued challenges are expected this year, Cox said.
BYD has continued to benefit from billions of dollars in Chinese government subsidies as well as tax subsidies for buyers.
LEAD STORIES, SATURDAY'S NYT
U.S. Captures Venezuelan Leader, Trump Says
Venezuelan Leader Flown Out of Country After ‘Large-Scale’ Attack
Trump to Address the Nation This Morning
Reached by Phone, Trump Celebrated the Capture of Maduro
‘Wicked’ Composer Bows Out of Kennedy Center Gala Over Trump’s Changes
Mamdani Acts on Vow to Protect Renters With Move Against a Big Landlord
Israel Accuses Mamdani of Antisemitism Over Canceled Orders
‘Chinese Peptides’ Are the Latest Biohacking Trend in the Tech World
FROM BREITBART:
President Donald Trump announced in a message on his website, Truth Social, on Friday that the United States is ready to intervene to “rescue” anti-regime protesters in Iran should the government attempt to brutalize them.
The president was responding to the eruption of nationwide protests against the terrorist regime in that country that began last week, a response to the collapse in the value of the rial, the national currency, in addition to various national crises that include a months-long struggle to maintain the water supply. Reports on Wednesday and Thursday indicated that Iran’s repressive apparatus killed at least seven people on Thursday, but the protesters have continued attacking regime institutions, including attempting to burn down police and security force offices in multiple cities. Chants of “death to the dictator” and “death to Khamenei” have spread.
LET'S MAKE A HAPPY NEW YEAR
After a tumultuous 2025, we start on a clarifying journey.
by Matt Taibbi
First, the bad news. In the latest indictment of my executive management skills, America This Week will not be coming out tomorrow. Too many people are on vacation at once, with too many people in airports at the wrong times. Unless aliens land or earth’s core implodes Sunday, the year-end wrap comes Monday. On behalf of all, I apologize.
Today is New Year’s Day, which means the seemingly interminable horror-coaster ride of 2025 is finally past. Politically, it was a wild year. Much as 2015-2016 saw the rise of populism and a radical electoral reconfiguration that included the merger of neoconservative Republicans and Clinton Democrats, 2025 saw dramatic fissures. Domestically, the MAGA movement is splintering over a podcast argument and the Democratic establishment seems paralyzed by its own boom of socialist candidates. Globally, a security framework in place since 1945 is hanging by a thread, with the West’s once-democracies all snarling for a fight, maybe with each other. The moment recalls a passage from the great 1940 elegy of Yeats by W.H. Auden:
In the nightmare of the dark
All the dogs of Europe bark,
And the living nations wait,
Each sequestered in its hate.
How different the world suddenly looks! In 1992 politicians and intellectuals were convinced we’d reached The End of History, with Europeans and Americans sure they’d already discovered government in its ideal form, with no serious incentives left for war and a not-small possibility open that “successful democratic societies could remain that way indefinitely.” Tinker a little here to lower crime, a little there to deal with drugs or homelessness or extremism, and perhaps the Hegelian cycle of endless conflict and synthesis could be halted — maybe there was nothing left to talk about?
That feels like a thousand years ago. Today those same “social democracies” hardly share a clear status quo belief about anything. Do we want nation-states or not? Majority rule? Free enterprise? Borders? Liberal education? Fiat currency? Families? The one seemingly universal conviction is that the existing system is no longer functional, causing question-clouds to form over the most fundamental parts of society, to say nothing of merely enormous structures like the health bureaucracy or the system of international trade. Gathering controversies over all these things may end well, but they almost can’t end soon.
I was raised in the irony generation, which means I’m generally allergic to conviction or answers. My Generation X was sandwiched between Boomer parents we loved but secretly laughed about (like bearded Steven Keaton from Family Ties) and a millenial earnestness we didn’t get. The current uncertain era has already shown that young radicals and elderly nostalgics seem to have more common than our group in between, raised on standup and MTV.
My generation never had to truly suffer or fight a war, a debt we owed to parents and grandparents. To pass the same gift to our kids, it now looks like we’re going to have to step outside our comfort zones and get serious, starting now, or soon anyway. What will that look like? For our own small part at Racket we have a few ideas, and we hope you stick with us and help us work those out. We’re all going to need our friends more than ever. In the meantime, please join us in welcoming 2026, which we still hope and believe will be a much better year. Only a few hours, and no disasters yet — a good sign! And things still left to try.
Happy New Year, everyone, and buckle up.
“IT WAS POSSIBLE, no doubt, to imagine a society in which wealth, in the sense of personal possessions and luxuries, should be evenly distributed, while power remained in the hands of a small privileged caste. But in practice such a society could not long remain stable. For if leisure and security were enjoyed by all alike, the great mass of human beings who are normally stupefied by poverty would become literate and would learn to think for themselves; and when once they had done this, they would sooner or later realise that the privileged minority had no function, and they would sweep it away. In the long run, a hierarchical society was only possible on a basis of poverty and ignorance.”
— George Orwell
HILDEGARD KNEF’S CENTURY
by David Yearsley
Hildegard Knef would have celebrated her 100th birthday on December 28 just passed. Given the number of cigarettes she smoked (Marlboros, three packs a day), the years she spent addicted to morphine (nearly twenty) as a result of the many operations she underwent and after the disastrous birth of her only child, and her long battle with breast cancer, she was lucky to make it to 77 when she died in 2002.
She was lucky even to make it out of her teens in Berlin. She survived harrowing air raids, was once nearly incinerated trying to get into a crowded bunker. In the last days of the war she fought against the Russian advance into her neighborhood dressed as a male in German army uniform. She helped operate a machine gun, fired on the enemy though she hated the Nazis. In this disguise, she avoided rape, but also, miraculously, execution for impersonating a soldier. In the conflict’s closing chaos she married an older German officer who, after the defeat, was disappeared to Russia and never returned. In the weeks after the surrender, Knef’s beloved grandfather killed himself.
Her gripping memoir, Der geschenkte Gaul (The Gift Horse), published in 1970, four years before she turned fifty, was a huge hit. The English translation remained atop The New York Times bestseller list for eighteen weeks. Her surreal account of the Battle for Berlin is literally hair-raising: severed limbs aflame, oxygen sucked from the air, people losing their minds and lives or both. Soon after the war she was summoned to America by David Selznick, keen on making her the next Ingrid Bergman. On her arrival, the notorious producer insisted that she take six hours of English lessons every day. Selznick also wanted her to change her name to Gilda Christians. She refused.
Out in L.A., she studied German literature with Herbert Marcuse, but he didn’t teach her her extraordinary gifts for language. Her autobiography is a gripping, often non-linear, sharply written book filled with acid commentary and self-criticism. Mixing dialogue in her native Berlin dialect with grammatically intricate and brilliantly telling details in eccentric, challenging prose, Knef’s work is hateful of hypocrisy and full of the unblinking flair that also brightens and darkens her songs after she increasingly turned away from film acting in the 1960s.
Marcuse and Selznick are just two of the dozens and dozens of names that are dropped in Der geschenkte Gaul. They don’t fall as densely and lethally as the bombs of Berlin but do detonate with their own kind of explosive power on the page. After getting a job as an animator at a Berlin movie studio, she caught the eye of producers and was soon receiving acting training and bit parts. Goebbels noticed her on screen, but with the help of canny mentors in the Berlin film business she evaded him as she did ordnance.
Married first to a Jewish-American officer who also spoke German, since he’d been born in Bohemia, Knef got American citizenship and shuttled back and forth across the Atlantic working in films in English and German. To rave reviews, she starred in the original Broadway cast of Silk Stockings in 1955, was befriended by its author Cole Porter as well as Noël Coward. William Faulkner got drunk at one of her parties at her apartment on Fifth Avenue and fell asleep in the corner. She acted across from Erich von Stroheim, was a protégée of Marlene Dietrich, but fell out with her as she did with so many friends, lovers, and husbands. Knef was in Billy Wilder’s penultimate film, Fedora (1978), only to find out at the premiere that her voice had been dubbed. In this one case, she claimed not to have the words to express her disgust.
Too much attention is often paid to the fact that Knef did the first nude scene in German cinema, posing for a portrait being done by the onscreen artist (Gustav Fröhlich), in Die Sünderin of 1951. Censorship, indignation, and protests ensued, especially in Catholic Bavaria. In her memoir, Knef quotes the response to all this moral outrage offered by another of her mentors, the most important interwar German film producer, Erich Pommer (The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari; Metropolis; The Blue Angel): “They start a revolution over a film, but not over the gas chambers.” The nude scene was cut from the version released in America.
Over these decades Knef raked in heaps of money with her books and songs and movies but spent more than she made. More than a little was stolen by unscrupulous managers. She lived large because she couldn’t be small.
Declare your admiration for Knef now to Germans of my generation—children of the 1960s—and prepare to be scoffed at. Younger folks will look blankly at the mention of her name.
Ella Fitzgerald called her “the greatest singer in the world without a voice.” That contradiction captured an essential quality of Knef. Her devotees were as ardent as her detractors. There was no middle ground in anything she made or did or in the reactions to the spectacle that was her life. Ella’s was a sincere compliment, not a backhanded one. It was easier to dismiss and defame Knef from afar than to confront the force of her persona on screen or in song. She communicated a truth, often bitter even if—or because—it was hazed or honeyed, whether live in a concert hall or club, or in the soundproofed confessional booth of the recording studio.
She is known mostly now outside of Germany, a quarter century after her death, as a chanteuse in spite of being a huge film star in her day. Her song lyrics oscillated between cynicism and maudlin sincerity that, on reflection, couldn’t necessarily be trusted, at least not completely. She brought the sweet and sour together in sometimes painful embrace. One of her biggest hits, Für mich soll’s rote Rosen regnen (For me it should rain red roses) of 1968, was an oozy paean to youthful dreams and potential that could be heard both to accept and to mock its own limitless desire and heartwarming resilience. In 1999 she simultaneously updated and demolished the song with the backing of the German punk rock band Extrabreit.
My favorite from her considerable catalog is the first song I heard: “Ich bin den weiten Weg gegangen” (I’ve walked the long path), written with her longtime collaborator, the Austrian composer and keyboardist Hans Hammerschmidt, who died just over a year ago at the age of 94. He’s heard on the groovy electric keyboard that animates this Lied as anti-biography. It’s a simple song made out of a relentlessly repeating bass line that descends by step before changing direction to arrive at the cadence and the start of another pass through the cycle. A radiant bridge occasionally rises from amidst these repetitions.
I was immediately drawn to the song not only because of its soaring 1970s strings and studio effects, the paradoxically laid-back urgency of the drumming, the slightly frail cockiness of the electric bass, the frankness of the singing (back me up here, Ella), but also because it reminded me of one of my favorite ground basses, Dieterich Buxtehude’s setting of the 42nd Psalm: Quemadmodum desiderat cervus (Like as the hart desireth the water-brooks, so longeth my soul after thee, O God). This baroque masterpiece of some six minutes demands virtuosic singing that Ella could have mustered, but not Hilde. The ecstatic lines unfurling at tempo and the sustained notes holding out against the kaleidoscopic counterpoint of the ensemble ardently express an unquenchable, ever-forward striving love of the Lord.
Knef’s take on this vamp begins with an admission that the road she has taken has often gone in circles. She was clever but never wise. In the second pass through the bass pattern, she sings that her life initially pursued had clear goals. She knew what these were and where she was going, in spite of the opening acknowledgment of circularity that, like the bass line, brings the narrator and listeners incessantly back to where they started. Nonetheless, she believed that her goal was a good one. It must have been fame but is never mentioned.
After the third pass through the pattern there is a preemptory key change up a half step. This classic pop maneuver is usually saved as a triumphant, even redemptive gesture that comes late in a three-minute song, not dangerously near the opening as it does in “Ich bin den weiten Weg.” This chromatic boost announces not transcendence but defeat: her goal was “run over” (unters Rad gekommen)—destroyed, presumably by the wheels of the express train of her own ambition. Still, the bass line rolls on, unstoppable, indifferent as she confesses to seeking a new goal but to no avail, even as the violins strive for contradictory heights. In the end the music carries her on after she renounces direction, instead embracing individual moments (the scent of the early morning and the cool of green trees) and “the hope in others.” It is as if she wants to stop time even as the music refuses to.
The inexorable groove of progress and achievement gives up on those very goals. The path leads not ahead but in circles, Knef repeats at the end before Hammerschmidt riffs into the smoggy sunset of the fade-out: words and music to live and listen by, whether the year is new or old.
(David Yearsley is a long-time contributor to CounterPunch and the Anderson Valley Advertiser. His latest albums, “In the Cabinet of Wonders” and “Handel’s Organ Banquet” are now available from False Azure Records.)
CARACAS ATTACKED
CARACAS ATTACKED
Well, here we go again. Gotta erase those evil spirits and cut some hearts out!
I’m old enough to remember a certain presidential candidate promising “no more wars.”
We will see if there is a war. For now, the Maduro political establishment is being allowed to remain in power. This is a socialist group with strong ties to Cuba, Iran, Russia, and China. The questions are, will they allow free and fair elections down the road, and will they get out of the drug trade?
Socialist? Hogwash. Venezuela has had all the power placed in the President, and owns the national oil enterprise. The accurate description is authoritarian and fascist.
Is there a difference?
From all reliable reports, there is massive opposition to MAGA management of Venezuela. Will Trump invest troops to do it, thus expanding this obvious disaster? We’re going to have a fiasco greater than Iraq or Afghanistan either way.
To the Hague with them already. Trump, Hegseth, Vance and Rubio all.
+1
+1 also. I actually misread Gary’s comment at first, seeing it as “To Hades with them already.” Kinda fits, I’d say.