As a young girl, I thought my dad was the funniest, smartest, most handsome man in the world. He had many wonderful and endearing qualities, but he was a complicated man. He was an alcoholic and carried a depth of grief, shame and anger that often made him hide the best parts of himself.

CalMatters: I’m one of 60 people who clean the California Medical Facility in Vacaville. Our jobs, which we got through PRIDE Industries, have given us purpose, dignity and steady paychecks that help us pay rent, buy groceries and care for our loved ones. Now all of that is a risk. 

Certainly, many employers are recognizing the business benefits of people working together in an office at least a few days per week, but widespread employee protests have shown that implementing that return is going to be an uphill battle. So what do you do as an employer who’s ready to make that call? And what rights do you have if your boss wants you back in a cubicle?

While dollar donations are mission critical and help to keep the figurative lights on at many nonprofits, hands-on volunteers are also valuable — and the most in-demand type of volunteer role needed is board service. 

FROM THE PUBLISHER: The on-again/off-again saga of relocating the Sacramento Zoo from its longtime William Land Park location to the city of Elk Grove, a little under 13 miles away, had seemed like an idea whose time, available acreage, freeway access and enthusiastic support had come. Then it seemed like it hadn’t, and the project was unceremoniously killed. What happened?

CalMatters: California’s port traffic is beginning to look worse now, under the effects of President Donald Trump’s fickle tariff policy, than it did at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

CalMatters: A controversial $125 million deal California struck with Google last year to prop up the state’s struggling journalism industry is already on track to shrink — before any of the money has been delivered to news outlets.

FROM THE PUBLISHER: As our seasons change to spring and summer, I look forward to shopping in the many farmers markets in our region. I’ve always been a fan and believe that health is even more important than financial wealth. As Dr. Hans Diehl said at a conference I attended: “Health isn’t everything, but without it everything is nothing.” I live by that notion, and thoroughly believe it.   

This time will be different. Nonprofits tend to survive recessions, albeit with considerable tenacity. Today, however, a lot of them directly or indirectly receive government funding for their services. Many of their donors work in public service and companies that support it. As funding for USAID and other large public programs is being cut, nonprofits are losing revenue that donations alone cannot easily replace.

Baseball had become part of my life — not like a boy growing up playing the game (because there were few female sports back then). But baseball became a constant thread for me in other ways.