President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden are kicking off the Juneteenth holiday early by celebrating Black Excellence at The White House on Tuesday night.

A concert scheduled to stream live on YouTube at 7 p.m. ET will feature performances and appearances by EGOT winner Jennifer Hudson, six-time Tony Award winner Audra McDonald, hip-hop superstar Method Man, Grammy winner Ledisi and gospel group Maverick City Music.

Also slated to appear on the South Lawn are Emmy Award winner Colman Domingo, the Broadway Inspirational Voices choir, the Step Afrika! dance troupe and marching bands from historically black colleges and universities in Maryland and Tennessee.

Juneteenth — also known as Emancipation Day — honors June 19, 1865, when federal troops brought the news of freedom to a group of enslaved Black people in Galveston, Texas, more than two years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.

Juneteenth was officially made a Texas state holiday on Jan. 1, 1980. However, it wasn’t recognized as a federal holiday until 2021 when Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act, alongside Vice President Kamala Harris — the first woman, Asian-American and Black person to serve as VP.

“Throughout history, Juneteenth has been known by many names: Jubilee Day, Freedom Day, Liberation Day, Emancipation Day, and today, a national holiday,” Harris said during the White House East Room signing ceremony.

“We are gathered here in a house built by enslaved people. We are footsteps away from where President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation,” she continued. “We have come far, and we have far to go. But today is a day of celebration. It is not only a day of pride. It’s also a day for us to reaffirm and rededicate ourselves to action.”

All federal buildings, banks and legitimate businesses honor their employees and mark Juneteenth as a paid holiday.

The Grammy Awards announced another tune-up Tuesday, adding three new categories ahead of next year’s show.

The 2024 ceremony is set to introduce Best African Music Performance, Best Pop Dance Recording and Best Alternative Jazz Album, organizers said.

The Best African Music Performance category will recognize “recordings that utilize unique local expressions from across the African continent,” the announcement reads. Best Pop Dance Recording will honor “tracks and singles that feature up-tempo, danceable music that follows a pop arrangement,” while Best Alternative Jazz Album will celebrate “artistic excellence in Alternative Jazz albums by individuals, duos and groups/ensembles, with or without vocals.”

The new additions follow a 2023 ceremony in which the Grammys added five categories, including Songwriter of the Year.

“These changes reflect our commitment to actively listen and respond to the feedback from our music community, accurately represent a diverse range of relevant musical genres, and stay aligned with the ever-evolving musical landscape,” Henry Mason Jr., CEO of the Recording Academy, said Tuesday. “By introducing these three new categories, we are able to acknowledge and appreciate a broader array of artists.”

Tuesday’s announcement also revealed that Songwriter of the Year and Producer of the Year will move to the Grammys’ general field, which is non-genre-specific. Album, Song and Record of the Year are also in the general field, as is Best New Artist.

“We are excited to honor and celebrate the creators and recordings in these categories, while also exposing a wider range of music to fans worldwide,” Mason said.

This year’s Grammys took place in February at Los Angeles’ Crypto.com Arena, where Beyonce set a new record with her 32nd career win. Harry Styles won Album of the Year for “Harry’s House,” Lizzo won Record of the Year for “About Damn Time” and Bonnie Raitt won Song of the Year for “Just Like That.”

©2023 New York Daily News. Visit nydailynews.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Donald Trump made an first appearance in federal court in Miami on Tuesday facing 37 counts related to the mishandling and retention of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate.

Here’s a look at the charges, the special counsel’s investigation and how Trump’s case differs from those of other politicians known to be in possession of classified documents:

What happened in court?

Trump’s lawyer entered a not-guilty plea for him, and the former president was released on his own recognizance without having to pay bond. He will not have to surrender his passport or have his personal travel restricted.

He scowled at times during the 50-minute hearing, but was otherwise expressionless. He also crossed his arms, fiddled with a pen and crossed his fingers back and forth as he listened.

Trump leaned over to whisper to his attorneys before the hearing began but did not speak during the proceedings. He remained seated while his lawyer Todd Blanche stood up and entered the plea on his behalf. “We most certainly enter a plea of not guilty,” he told the judge.

Blanche objected to barring the former president from talking to witnesses, including his co-defendant, valet Walt Nauta, saying that they work for him and he needs to be able to communicate with them. After some back and forth, Magistrate Judge Jonathan Goodman said Trump cannot talk to them about the case except through his lawyers, but he can talk to them about their jobs.

Nauta was granted bond with the same conditions as Trump. He did not enter a plea because he does not have a local attorney. He will be arraigned June 27 before Chief Magistrate Judge Edwin Torres, but he does not have to be present.

Unlike Trump’s arraignment in New York, no photographs were taken because cameras aren’t allowed in federal court. There were, however, sketch artists, and theirs will be the only images from the actual courtroom appearance.

Security remained tight outside the building, but there were no signs of significant disruptions despite the presence of hundreds of protesters. Miami Mayor Francis Suarez said on Fox News that there were no arrests or “major incidents.”

What happens next?

After the hearing, Trump is flying back to his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club. He plans to hold a fundraiser and give a speech later Tuesday night.

Before heading to the airport, Trump’s motorcade took a detour to Versailles Restaurant in Miami’s Little Havana neighborhood, where a small crowd of supporters awaited him. Posing for photos and saying “food for everyone,” Trump commented briefly on his case.

“I think it’s going great,” he said. “We have a rigged country. We have a country that’s corrupt.”

Several religious leaders at the restaurant prayed over him for a moment.

What are the charges?

Trump faces 37 counts related to the mishandling of classified documents, including 31 counts under an Espionage Act statute pertaining to the willful retention of national defense information. The charges also include counts of obstructing justice and making false statements, among other crimes.

Trump is accused of keeping documents related to “nuclear weaponry in the United States” and the “nuclear capabilities of a foreign country,” along with documents from White House intelligence briefings, including some that detail the military capabilities of the U.S. and other countries, according to the indictment.

Prosecutors allege Trump showed off the documents to people who did not have security clearances to review them and later tried to conceal documents from his own lawyers as they sought to comply with federal demands to find and return documents.

The top charges carry penalties of up to 20 years in prison.

How did this case come about?

Officials with the National Archives and Records Administration reached out to representatives for Trump in spring 2021 when they realized that important material from his time in office was missing.

According to the Presidential Records Act, White House documents are considered property of the U.S. government and must be preserved.

A Trump representative told the National Archives in December 2021 that presidential records had been found at Mar-a-Lago. In January 2022, the National Archives retrieved 15 boxes of documents from Trump’s Florida home, later telling Justice Department officials that they contained “a lot” of classified material.

That May, the FBI and Justice Department issued a subpoena for remaining classified documents in Trump’s possession. Investigators who went to visit the property weeks later to collect the records were given roughly three dozen documents and a sworn statement from Trump’s lawyers attesting that the requested information had been returned.

But that assertion turned out to be false. With a search warrant, federal officials returned to Mar-a-Lago in August 2022 and seized more than 33 boxes and containers totaling 11,000 documents from a storage room and an office, including 100 classified documents.

In all, roughly 300 documents with classification markings — including some at the top secret level — have been recovered from Trump since he left office in January 2021.

Didn’t President Joe Biden and former Vice President Mike Pence have classified documents, too?

Yes, but the circumstances of their cases are vastly different from those involving Trump.

After classified documents were found at Biden’s think tank and Pence’s Indiana home, their lawyers notified authorities and quickly arranged for them to be handed over. They also authorized other searches by federal authorities to search for additional documents.

There is no indication either was aware of the existence of the records before they were found, and no evidence has so far emerged that Biden or Pence sought to conceal the discoveries. That’s important because the Justice Department historically looks for willfulness in deciding whether to bring criminal charges.

A special counsel was appointed earlier this year to probe how classified materials ended up at Biden’s Delaware home and former office. But even if the Justice Department were to find Biden’s case prosecutable on the evidence, its Office of Legal Counsel has concluded that a president is immune from prosecution during his time in office.

As for Pence, the Justice Department informed his legal team earlier this month that it would not be pursuing criminal charges against him over his handling of the documents.

What about Hillary Clinton?

In claiming that Trump is the target of a politically motivated prosecution, some fellow Republicans have cited the Justice Department’s decision in 2016 not to bring charges against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Trump’s Democratic opponent in that year’s presidential race, over her handling of classified information.

Clinton relied on a private email system for the sake of convenience during her time as the Obama administration’s top diplomat. That decision came back to haunt her when, in 2015, the intelligence agencies’ internal watchdog alerted the FBI to the presence of potentially hundreds of emails containing classified information.

FBI investigators would ultimately conclude that Clinton sent and received emails containing classified information on that unclassified system, including information classified at the top secret level. Of the roughly 30,000 emails turned over by Clinton’s representatives, the FBI has said, 110 emails in 52 email chains were found to have classified information, including some top secret.

After a roughly yearlong inquiry, the FBI closed the investigation in July 2016, finding that Clinton did not intend to break the law. The bureau reopened the inquiry months later, 11 days before the presidential election, after discovering a new batch of emails. After reviewing those communications, the FBI again opted against recommending charges.

At the time, then-FBI Director James Comey condemned Clinton’s email practices as “extremely careless,” but noted that there was no evidence that Clinton had violated factors including efforts to obstruct justice, willful mishandling of classified documents and indications of disloyalty to the U.S.

Does a federal indictment prevent Trump from running for president?

No. Neither the charges nor a conviction would prevent Trump from running for or winning the presidency in 2024.

Since taking on the role of White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre has become known for frequently dodging questions by citing the Hatch Act. The law bars civil servants from politicking during their day jobs, and Jean-Pierre uses it to deflect reporters’ questions involving campaigns.

But apparently she wasn’t careful enough. The Office of Special Counsel, a government agency that enforces the Hatch Act, said in a recent letter that Jean-Pierre violated the law before last year’s midterm elections.

Her offense: Making frequent references to “MAGA Republicans” during White House briefings.

According to a letter from the Office of Special Counsel, Jean-Pierre “made those references to generate opposition to Republican candidates” and “accordingly, making the references constituted political activity.”

The letter was posted online by The Washington Post. It was first reported by NBC News.

Penalties for Hatch Act violations are uncommon, and the office did not recommend any fines or other punishments for Jean-Pierre.

Violations were much more common under President Donald Trump. The Office of Special Counsel sent an “unprecedented” 15 warning letters to senior Trump administration officials about running afoul of the Hatch Act, and it even recommended the firing of top adviser Kellyanne Conway.

Jean-Pierre faced scrutiny after a conservative organization called Protect the Public’s Trust filed a complaint.

The organization said Jean-Pierre was “disparaging President Biden’s political opponents as ‘mega MAGA Republican officials who don’t believe in the law.’”
Jean-Pierre said the White House counsel’s office was reviewing the letter, adding that “we do everything we can” to comply with the law and take it “very seriously.”

“At the time, I was given the sign off to use that terminology,” she said. Jean-Pierre said the term was used “in the context of talking about their policies, in talking about their values.”

She noted that some reporters often express “friendly consternation” about how often she cites the Hatch Act, and she suggested that she was confused by the violation.

After all, she said, Trump’s White House used the phrase “MAGA” about 2,000 times to describe his administration’s policies.

The company said on its website that the root cause of the issue was tied to a service called AWS Lambda, which lets customers run code for different types of applications.

Roughly two hours after customers began experiencing errors, the company posted on its AWS status page that many of the affected AWS services were “fully recovered” and it was continuing to recover the rest. Soon after 6:30 pm E.T., the company announced all AWS services were operating normally.

Amazon said it had experienced multiple error rates for AWS services in the Northern Virginia region where it clusters data centers. The company said customers may be dealing with authentication or sign-in errors when using some AWS services, and experiencing challenges when attempting to connect with AWS Support. The issue with Lambda also indirectly affected other AWS services.

Patrick Neighorn, a company spokesperson, declined to provide additional details about the outage.

AWS is the market leader in the cloud arena, and its customers include some of the world’s biggest businesses and organizations, such as Netflix, Coca-Cola and government agencies.

Tuesday’s outage was first confirmed shortly after 3 p.m. ET. and it was unclear how widespread the problem extended. But many companies, including news organizations such as The Verge and Penn Live, said they were experiencing issues. The Associated Press was also hampered by the outage, unable to operate their sites amid breaking news that former President Donald Trump was appearing in court in Miami.

Morgan Durrant, a spokesperson for Delta Air Lines, said the company experienced “some slowing of inbound calls for some minutes” on Tuesday afternoon. But he said the outage did not impact bookings, flights or other airport operations.

The episode on Tuesday is reminiscent of a much longer AWS outage in December 2021, which affected a host of U.S. companies for more than five hours.

The outage comes as Amazon is holding a two-day security conference in Anaheim, California to tout its cloud offerings to its clients or other companies that might be interested in storing their data on its vast network of servers around the world. Companies have been cutting back their spending on the unit, causing growth to slow during the most recent quarter.

Publisher Alfred A. Knopf, a Penguin Random House imprint, announced that McCarthy died of natural causes at his home in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

“For 60 years, he demonstrated an unwavering dedication to his craft, and to exploring the infinite possibilities and power of the written word,” Penguin Random House CEO Nihar Malaviya said in a statement. “Millions of readers around the world embraced his characters, his mythic themes, and the intimate emotional truths he laid bare on every page, in brilliant novels that will remain both timely and timeless, for generations to come.”

McCarthy, raised in Knoxville, Tennessee, was compared to William Faulkner for his expansive, Old Testament style and rural settings. McCarthy’s themes, like Faulkner’s, often were bleak and violent and dramatized how the past overwhelmed the present. Across stark and forbidding landscapes and rundown border communities, he placed drifters, thieves, prostitutes and old, broken men, all unable to escape fates determined for them well before they were born. As the doomed John Grady Cole of McCarthy’s celebrated “Border” trilogy would learn, dreams of a better life were only dreams, and falling in love an act of folly.

“Every man’s death is a standing in for every other,” McCarthy wrote in “Cities of the Plain,” the trilogy’s final book. “And since death comes to all there is no way to abate the fear of it except to love that man who stands for us.”

McCarthy’s own story was one of belated, and continuing, achievement and popularity. Little known to the public at age 60, he would become one of the country’s most honored and successful writers despite rarely talking to the press. He broke through commercially in 1992 with “All the Pretty Horses” and over the next 15 years won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer, was a guest on Oprah Winfrey’s show and saw his novel “No Country for Old Men” adapted by the Coen brothers into an Oscar-winning movie. Fans of the Coens would discover that the film’s terse, absurdist dialogue, so characteristic of the brothers’ work, was lifted straight from the novel.

“The Road,” his stark tale of a father and son who roam a ravaged landscape, brought him his widest audience and highest acclaim. It won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for fiction and was selected by Winfrey for her book club. In his Winfrey interview, McCarthy said that while typically he didn’t know what generates the ideas for his books, he could trace “The Road” to a trip he took with his young son to El Paso, Texas, early in the decade. Standing at the window of a hotel in the middle of the night as his son slept nearby, he started to imagine what El Paso might look like 50 or 100 years in the future.

“I just had this image of these fires up on the hill … and I thought a lot about my little boy,” he said.

He told Winfrey he didn’t care how many people read “The Road.”

“You would like for the people that would appreciate the book to read it. But, as far as many, many people reading it, so what?” he said.

McCarthy dedicated the book to his son, John Francis, and said having a child as an older man “forces the world on you, and I think it’s a good thing.” The Pulitzer committee called his book “the profoundly moving story of a journey.”

“It boldly imagines a future in which no hope remains, but in which the father and his son, ‘each the other’s world entire,’ are sustained by love,” the citation read in part. “Awesome in the totality of its vision, it is an unflinching meditation on the worst and the best that we are capable of: ultimate destructiveness, desperate tenacity, and the tenderness that keeps two people alive in the face of total devastation.”

After “The Road,” little was heard from McCarthy over the next 15 years and his career was presumed over. But in 2022, Knopf made the startling announcement that it would release a pair of connected novels he had referred to in the past: “The Passenger” and “Stella Maris,” narratives about a brother and sister, mutually obsessed siblings, and the legacy of their father, a physicist who had worked on atomic technology. “Stella Maris” was notable, in part, because it centered on a female character, an acknowledged weakness of McCarthy’s.

“I don’t pretend to understand women,” he told Winfrey.

His first novel, “The Orchard Keeper” — written in Chicago while he was working as an auto mechanic — was published by Random House in 1965. His editor was Albert Erskine, Faulkner’s longtime editor.

Other novels include “Outer Dark,” published in 1968; “Child of God” in 1973; and “Suttree” in 1979. The violent “Blood Meridian,” about a group of bounty hunters along the Texas-Mexico border murdering Indians for their scalps, was published in 1985.

His “Border Trilogy” books were set in the Southwest along the border with Mexico: “All the Pretty Horses” (1992) — a National Book Award winner that was turned into a feature film; “The Crossing” (1994), and “Cities of the Plain” (1998).

McCarthy said he was always lucky. He recalled living in a shack in Tennessee and running out of toothpaste, then going out and finding a toothpaste sample in the mailbox.

“That’s the way my life has been. Just when things were really, really bleak, something would happen,” said McCarthy, who won a MacArthur Fellowship — one of the so-called “genius grants” — in 1981.

In 2009, Christie’s auction house sold the Olivetti typewriter he used while writing such novels as “The Road” and “No Country for Old Men” for $254,500. McCarthy, who bought the Olivetti for $50 in 1958 and used it until 2009, donated it so the proceeds could be used to benefit the Santa Fe Institute, a nonprofit interdisciplinary scientific research community. He once said he didn’t know any writers and preferred to hang out with scientists.

The Southwestern Writers Collection at Texas State University-San Marcos purchased his archives in 2008, including correspondence, notes, drafts, proofs of 11 novels, a draft of an unfinished novel and materials related to a play and four screenplays.

McCarthy attended the University of Tennessee for a year before joining the Air Force in 1953. He returned to the school from 1957 to 1959, but left before graduating. As an adult, he lived around the Great Smoky Mountains before moving West in the late 1970s, eventually settling in Santa Fe.

His Knoxville boyhood home, long abandoned and overgrown, was destroyed by fire in 2009.

___

Retired AP reporter Sue Major Holmes in New Mexico was the primary writer of this obituary. AP National Writer Hillel Italie reported from New York.

Donald Trump became the first former president to face a judge on federal charges as he pleaded not guilty in a Miami courtroom Tuesday to dozens of felony counts accusing him of hoarding classified documents and refusing government demands to give them back.

The history-making court date, centered on charges that Trump mishandled government secrets that as commander-in-chief he was entrusted to protect, kickstarts a legal process that could unfold at the height of the 2024 presidential campaign and carry profound consequences not only for his political future but also for his own personal liberty.

Trump approached his arraignment with characteristic bravado, posting social media broadsides against the prosecution from inside his motorcade en route to the courthouse and insisting as he has through years of legal woes that he has done nothing wrong and was being persecuted for political purposes. But inside the courtroom, he sat silently, scowling and arms crossed as a lawyer entered a not guilty plea on his behalf in a brief arraignment that ended without him having to surrender his passport or otherwise restrict his travel.

The arraignment, though largely procedural in nature, was the latest in an unprecedented public reckoning this year for Trump, who faces charges in New York arising from hush money payments during his 2016 presidential campaign as well as ongoing investigations in Washington and Atlanta into efforts to undo the results of the 2020 race.

He’s sought to project confidence in the face of unmistakable legal peril, attacking the Justice Department special counsel who filed the case as “a Trump hater,” pledging to remain in the race and scheduling a speech and fundraiser for Tuesday night at his Bedminster, New Jersey, club. He stopped on his way out of Miami at Versailles, an iconic Cuban restaurant in the city’s Little Havana neighborhood where supporters serenaded Trump, who turns 77 years old on Wednesday, with “Happy Birthday.”

Even so, the gravity of the moment was clear.

Until last week, no former president had ever been charged by the Justice Department, let alone accused of mishandling top-secret information. The indictment unsealed last week charged Trump with 37 felony counts — many under the Espionage Act — that accuse him of illegally storing classified documents in his bedroom, bathroom, shower and other locations at Mar-a-Lago and trying to hide them from the Justice Department as investigators demanded them back. The charges carry a yearslong prison sentence in the event of a conviction.

Trump has relied on a familiar playbook of painting himself as a victim of political persecution. But Attorney General Merrick Garland, an appointee of President Joe Biden, sought to insulate the department from political attacks by handing ownership of the case to a special counsel, Jack Smith, who on Friday declared, “We have one set of laws in this country, and they apply to everyone.”

Smith attended Tuesday’s arraignment, sitting in the front row behind his team of prosecutors.

The court appearance unfolded against the backdrop of potential protests, with some high-profile backers using barbed rhetoric to voice support. Trump himself encouraged supporters to join a planned protest Tuesday at the courthouse. Though city officials said they prepared for possible unrest around the courthouse, there were little signs of significant disruption.

While Trump was not required to surrender a passport – prosecutor David Harbach said he was not considered a flight risk, a likely recognition of his status as a presidential candidate – he was directed to not have any personal contact with any witnesses in the case. That includes Walt Nauta, his valet and close aide, who was indicted last week on charges that he moved boxes of documents at Trump’s direction and misled the FBI about it. He did not enter a plea Tuesday because he did not have a local lawyer with him.

The magistrate judge who presided over the arraignment directed Trump not to discuss the case with any witnesses, including Nauta, but said they can discuss work.

Even for a man whose post-presidential life has been defined by criminal investigations, the documents probe had long stood out both because of the volume of evidence that prosecutors had seemed to amass and the severity of the allegations.

A federal grand jury in Washington had heard testimony for months, but the Justice Department filed it in Florida, where Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort is located and where many of the alleged acts of obstruction occurred. Though Trump appeared Tuesday before a federal magistrate, the case has been assigned to a District Court judge he appointed, Aileen Cannon, who ruled in his favor last year in a dispute over whether an outside special master could be appointed to review the seized classified documents. A federal appeals panel ultimately overturned her ruling.

It’s unclear what defenses Trump is likely to invoke as the case moves forward. Two of his lead lawyers announced their resignation the morning after his indictment, and the notes and recollections of another attorney, M. Evan Corcoran, are cited repeatedly throughout the 49-page charging document, suggesting prosecutors envision him as a potential key witness.

The Justice Department unsealed Friday an indictment charging Trump with 37 felony counts, 31 relating to the willful retention of national defense information. Other charges include conspiracy to commit obstruction and false statements.

The indictment alleges Trump intentionally retained hundreds of classified documents that he took with him from the White House to Mar-a-Lago after leaving office in January 2021. The material he stored, including in a bathroom, ballroom, bedroom and shower, included material on nuclear programs, defense and weapons capabilities of the U.S. and foreign governments and a Pentagon “attack plan,” prosecutors say

Beyond that, prosecutors say, he sought to obstruct government efforts to recover the documents, including by directing personal aide Walt Nauta — who was charged alongside Trump — to move boxes to conceal them and also suggesting to his own lawyer that he hide or destroy documents sought by a Justice Department subpoena.

Tucker reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Jill Colvin in New York and Terry Spencer, Kate Brumback, Curt Anderson and Joshua Goodman in Miami, contributed to this report.

Never heard of them? Turku was built in the 13th century, and the “Paris of Finland” was that country’s capital until 1812. Today, you can visit the city’s medieval fortress, traipse the cobblestone streets and riverside byways, and enjoy fika — a coffee and cake break we really need to adopt over here — at one of its many cafes.

You’ll find Lake Bacalar’s clear blue waters on Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, and Srebrenik is a dramatic, medieval town in Bosnia and Herzegovina that looks straight out “Game of Thrones.” The full list of underrated destinations — and more travel tips — can be found at www.timeout.com/travel/. Meanwhile, here’s a peek at the top 10.

1. Mongolia

2. Lake Bacalar, Mexico

3. Cuenca, Ecuador

4. Srebrenik, Bosnia and Herzegovina

5. Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico

6. Gippsland, Australia

7. Plymouth, England

8. Burlington, Vermont

9. Turku, Finland

10. Karpathos, Greece

DeWalt, a Stanley Black & Decker brand, recently launched a pair of tools to make any dad happy. The 20V Max Brushless 1/2-inch Drill/Driver (DCD793) is an amazingly small and powerful cordless tool. It’s built with a more petite body than previous models (about 2 inches shorter) but with 16% more power.

The new light and powerful tool (6.38-by-7.88-by-2.49 inches, 2.38 pounds) is built with an efficient brushless motor and 15 clutch positions, and it’s keyless, so no chuck key needed. It works off a 20V MAX 2.0 Ah rechargeable battery and has easy-to-control variable speeds. An on-tool LED helps light up tough-to-get dark areas.

A more powerful 20V Max Brushless Cordless 1/2-inch Hammer Drill Kit (DCD798) is built with a body over 1 inch shorter in length compared to previous models with 16% more power. If your user drills into concrete, this is what you want. It features a hammer mode for concrete and masonry applications. The hammer drill provides power up to 28,050 beats/blows per minute in hammer mode.

The hammer drill (6.93-by-7.88-by-2.49 inches, 2.49 pounds) works off the same portable battery and without a loading key, and it has a brushless motor and an on-tool LED work light.

Both models have a 0.5-inch ratcheting chuck, produce 404 unit watts out of power, and run up to easy-to-control variable speeds up to 1,650 revolutions per minute.

Both are available as a single tool or in a kit. The kit includes the device, a DeWalt 20V Max 2.0 Ah rechargeable battery, a charger, a belt hook and a bag. The battery and charger are also sold separately. The DCD793 Compact Drill/Driver Kit is currently $99 at Lowes through Aug. 2, and the DCD798 kit is $184.

DeWalt’s 20V Max line, a portable tool collection, has cordless tools for almost any job inside or out and perfect gift choices for future dad gifts. They include saws, leaf blowers, hedge trimmers, vacuums, lasers, impact wrenches and more.

www.dewalt.com

Soundcore’s new Motion X600 Bluetooth speaker, called by the company “the world’s first portable high-fidelity speaker,” is Father’s Day-ready, summer-ready, and any music listening at any location-ready.

Dad can take it poolside with its IPX7 water protection, or grab it by the handle and have it play his favorite playlist while tinkering in the garage. Consider it his modern-day boombox. There are no locations it’s limited to, and if you want it to be the life of the party, that’s no problem with its booming 50-watt power, enabling it to provide a room full of sound.

Inside the aluminum speaker is a 6,400 mAh rechargeable battery (USB-C to C charging cable included), suitable for about 12 hours of playtime at half volume. The 5- watt sound comes from a 20-watt left channel, 20-watt right channel, and 10 watts from the sky channel, all covered by a stainless steel grill.

The decorative features are essential, but the sound counts the most, and the Motion X600 doesn’t disappoint. Its clarity at low levels or in room-filling settings provides robust and high-quality sound. Bringing it to the higher volume levels brought both the great sound and very high volume levels, so much so that it had to be lowered a little not to annoy my neighbors during testing.

For those wanting to control the sound with customized settings, the Soundcore app will do that to achieve peak performance. Soundcore states that if you have two Motion X600 speakers, they can be paired simultaneously for authentic stereo sound.

Touch controls are responsive and easy to access across the top. An aux-in port is on the back, and there’s a built-in microphone.

https://us.soundcore.com $199.99, available in polar gray, lunar blue and aurora green

©2023 Gregg Ellman. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

I usually double the recipe and freeze them to have an easy breakfast or after school snack for a couple of weeks. They can also be stored in a sealed container in the refrigerator for up to a week.

Blueberry Ginger Bran Muffins

Makes 12 muffins

INGREDIENTS

1 large egg

¼ cup molasses

1/3 cup honey

1/3 cup sunflower or other vegetable oil

1/3 cup unsweetened applesauce

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

¾ cup milk

1½ cups whole wheat flour

1 cup wheat bran

1 teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

½ teaspoon ground ginger

1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries

¼ cup minced candied ginger

DIRECTIONS

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Grease 12 muffin cups or line with paper liners.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the egg, molasses, honey, sunflower oil, applesauce, vanilla and milk until combined.

In a separate bowl combine the flour, wheat bran, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and ground ginger. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and gently whisk to combine until no dry pockets remain, but don’t overmix. Fold in the blueberries and ginger with a rubber spatula.

Divide the batter among the muffin cups, filling them nearly to the top. Bake on the center rack of the oven for 15 to 18 minutes or until tops spring back when gently pressed or until a wooden toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Allow muffins to cool slightly in the muffin tin before transferring them to a wire rack to cool completely. Store in an airtight container for up to 3 days or refrigerate or freeze and heat for later consumption.

Registered dietitian and food writer Laura McLively is the author of “The Berkeley Bowl Cookbook.” Follow her at @myberkeleybowl and www.lauramclively.com.

I was surprised by a light and refreshing sauce served at a local restaurant. They used gazpacho, a fresh tomato mixture usually served as a cold soup. I decided to use this style of sauce over a seared tuna steak. The flavorful sauce and tender tuna were a perfect match. A slice of garlicky toast with the dish was perfect for sopping up extra sauce.

Ahi tuna is best for this recipe. It is also known as yellowfin. Although any tuna can be used for the recipe, ask for sushi-grade ahi for best results, if available.

Helpful Hints:

— You can use any type of rice.

— If you don’t have a blender or food processor, just mix the sauce ingredients well together. The sauce will be chunky but still delicious.

Countdown:

— Microwave rice and set aside.

— Make sauce.

— Toast bread.

— Sear tuna.

Shopping List:

To buy: 3/4 pound tuna steaks, 1 package microwaveable brown rice, 1 small bottle reduced-sodium tomato juice, 1 cucumber, whole wheat baguette and olive oil spray.

Staples: olive oil, onion, garlic salt and black peppercorns.

—

SEARED TUNA WITH GAZPACHO SAUCE

Recipe by Linda Gassenheimer

• Microwaveable brown rice to make 1 1/2 cups rice
• 1/2 cup reduced-sodium tomato juice
• 1 cup diced tomatoes
• 1/2 cup diced cucumber plus 2 tablespoons diced cucumber (divided use)
• 1/2 cup diced onion
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1 garlic clove
• 4 slices whole wheat baguette
• Olive oil spray
• 4 teaspoons olive oil
• 3/4 pound tuna steaks, about 1-inch thick

Make rice according to package instructions. Measure 1 1/2 cups and set aside. Save any remaining rice for another meal. Puree the tomato juice, diced tomatoes, 1/2 cup diced cucumber and onion together in a blender or food processor. Add salt and pepper to taste. Set aside. Cut garlic clove in half and rub over one side of the sliced bread. Spray that side with olive oil spray. Toast in a toaster oven or under the broiler. Set aside. Heat oil in a medium-size nonstick skillet over medium-high heat and add the tuna. Brown 2 minutes. Turn tuna over and brown two minutes for rare or another 2 minutes for medium-rare. Divide into 2 portions and place on dinner plates. Spoon a little sauce over the sliced tuna and serve the rest of the sauce on the side. Sprinkle the remaining 2 tablespoons diced cucumber on top of the tuna. Serve the toasted bread on the side.

Yield 2 servings.

Per serving: 594 calories (33% from fat), 15.3 g fat (2.4 g saturated, 6.8 g monounsaturated), 78 mg cholesterol, 48.4 g protein, 64.9 g carbohydrates, 5.7 g fiber, 214 mg sodium.

(Linda Gassenheimer is the author of over 30 cookbooks, including her newest, “The 12-Week Diabetes Cookbook.” Listen to Linda on www.WDNA.org and all major podcast sites. Email her at Linda@DinnerInMinutes.com.)

©2023 Tribune Content Agency, LLC

What is a socially responsible bank?

Corporate social responsibility is the self-regulation that businesses do to help promote a positive impact on environmental or social issues, such as racial equity.

In the banking industry, social responsibility refers to the ways banks can reduce harm or create opportunities for good. For an eco-conscious bank or credit union, that might mean it doesn’t invest in oil pipelines, deforestation or fossil fuels, or it might invest in alternative energy, plant trees or buy carbon offsets. Other banks or credit unions might be committed to equity goals by providing financial literacy programs to their communities or by giving more loans to minority-owned small businesses.

Why does it matter where I put my money?

It’s easy to imagine that the money you keep in your savings account, checking account or certificate of deposit is just waiting for you to use it. But your bank or credit union is using your money behind the scenes to lend to or invest in businesses or other customers. So even if you aren’t directly giving money to an oil refinery or company that’s clearing the Amazon rainforest, your money could still be supporting those initiatives.

There has been a long history of discrimination in the U.S. banking system against people of color, and you can put your money with a bank or credit union that’s working to support these marginalized groups. Elizabeth Vivirito, a financial services consultant who specializes in diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, research, says she has observed more robust changes in the banking industry around racial equity since the murder of Black man George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer in May 2020.

“We see more people caring about where their money goes and what it’s funding,” Vivirito says.

How do I know what my bank is investing in?

It can be hard to know what a bank is doing with your money, but there are some ways to tell.

First, look at the bank’s website. Does it make any statements about its DEI goals? Does it explicitly say whether it invests in certain industries? Has the bank gone through any third-party certification processes, such as becoming a certified B Corp or joining 1% for the Planet or the Global Alliance for Banking on Values? These certifications and memberships each have goals and member requirements around sustainability and equity.

Once you’ve looked at the bank’s website, do a web search of the bank plus any keywords that you’d like to investigate, such as “social impact” or “community.” This should help you find specific statements or reports from the bank as well as any news or accountability reports from other sources that are keeping tabs on the bank’s efforts.

Note, too, that some banks are changing; they might be divesting from certain industries or adding programs to help people who have been historically shut out of banking services.

How can I find a socially responsible bank?

First, decide what social responsibility means to you. Do you want a bank committed to fighting climate change? In that case, you may want to choose a bank or credit union that is Fossil Free Certified, a certification from Bank Green. Do you want to combat financial racism and put your money into businesses that promote equity? Vivirito recommends looking into the history of your bank or credit union to see whom it was created to serve and what its mission is.

“The leadership, strategy and language of the institution should represent their community,” Vivirito says.

If you haven’t made any moves to open a new account and you’re looking for a simple way to be more socially conscious with your banking, Kara Pérez, founder of financial education company Bravely Go, says one of the easiest things you can do is move your money from a large national bank to a local credit union, which will use your money to support other local people, programs and businesses.

“Thinking about your money in a bigger picture way can help you make better decisions with it,” Pérez says. “Every dollar has power to shape our world.”

This article was written by NerdWallet and was originally published by The Associated Press.

More From NerdWallet

Maybe they do once in a while. I can’t think of any off the top of my head. My colleague Michael Phillips recently singled out the ending of “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” as an exception to the rule, and movie audiences can be fairly certain another installment will turn up in theaters.

When it comes to streaming originals, that expectation is less assured.

I happen to like a narrative that unfolds, beginning to end, with some economy. Wrap it up, I say! I want off this narrative treadmill! But Hollywood isn’t in the business of telling a satisfying story over the course of a single episode anymore. Serialization remains ascendant and streaming shows are defined by their season-long (sometimes series-long) story arcs.

If you’re lucky, those seasons end with some semblance of resolution.

Often, they don’t.

So what purpose does a cliffhanger serve if you don’t know when a show will return — or if it will return at all?

A sendup of our collective fascination with true crime, the dark comedy “Based on a True Story” premiered on Peacock last week and it is the latest series to fall into this trap. A couple discovers the identity of a serial killer and, rather than turning him in to the cops, they decide to make a podcast with him instead. Their safety remains in question throughout and the season ends on a cliffhanger — with no guarantee of a series renewal.

Cliffhangers are supposed to function as a promise of answers to come. You want a general idea of when that will be. In the streaming era, it could be anyone’s guess, and that sense of excitement from a cliffhanger dissipates over time. Instead of leaving an audience on tenterhooks, we’re left only to shrug. How anticlimactic!

Meanwhile, some streaming shows have ended their seasons on a cliffhanger, only to be canceled altogether, leaving audiences dangling forever. Who wants that?

Project by project, it’s unclear who’s pushing for cliffhangers. Is the showrunner? Or the executives to whom they answer? Or maybe cliffhangers are the inevitable result of untenable working conditions, with shrinking budgets reducing the creative process down to “mini-rooms” with four or five people mapping out an entire show in a matter of weeks.

A staple in fiction since at least the 19th century, when novels were serialized in magazines, cliffhangers were once primarily the hallmark of daytime soaps. But it was the nighttime soap “Dallas” that upped the ante with one of the most famous cliffhangers in TV history.

In the spring of 1980, the show’s third season ended with Larry Hagman’s egocentric oil baron J.R. Ewing gunned down. But who pulled the trigger? To promote the upcoming season, CBS created the catchphrase “Who shot J.R.?” — ingenious for its simplicity — and it became a shorthand for all cliffhangers that have dangled since.

Cliffhangers worked pretty well when shows followed a standard TV schedule, and new seasons launched in the fall and wrapped in the spring. A cliffhanger in May meant you’d be getting some answers come September. That felt like an honest pact between a show and its audience.

Streaming has upended all of that. Maybe there’ll be another season. Maybe there won’t. Maybe a show will be renewed, only to be canceled before new episodes are filmed. Or maybe new episodes were filmed and ready to go, but the show was canceled anyway and then subsequently picked up by a different cable or streaming platform, and here’s hoping you subscribe to that one, too.

Uncertainty can thwart the emotional connection you form with the shows you like best — or even perfect average shows you’re merely happy to have back on a consistent basis. But “perfectly average” doesn’t have a place in the TV landscape right now. And the ongoing writers strike has meant more uncertainty than ever.

For all the convenience offered by streaming, there are intangibles we’ve lost by abandoning the old network model.

Last month on Twitter, Los Angeles-based writer and filmmaker Amy Thurlow outlined some of those frustrations: Like a show? “Great, Season 2 will air a year and a half from now when the plot has become as memorable as what you had for breakfast last Friday. And maybe Season 2 does drop and you binge it all in two days. It was fun, but now it’s just a consumable. A sugar high. You aren’t sitting with the story week after week, letting it knock around in your head.”

Why bother getting invested, she asks, when there’s so little regularity?

Thurlow is hitting on something: A sense of regularity is missing in the streaming age.

The traditional network season — awash in cop shows and diminishing in quality by the year — still offers an external structure that does a lot of your thinking for you: New episodes will show up in this window. With streaming, that reliable calendar is gone. New seasons can drop any time. “I didn’t even know it was coming back,” is a persistent refrain because it’s unrealistic for most audiences to stay on top of so many unpredictable premiere dates.

Streaming favors the fire hose of new over the pleasures of the familiar and the regular, which means it’s harder than ever to remember which shows even exist.

Somebody recently asked: Does Apple TV+ have a marquee or signature show outside of “Ted Lasso”? My mind went blank. To jog my memory, I had to scan a list of Apple’s output, which does include some modestly buzzy shows such as “Shrinking,” “For All Mankind” and “Severance.”

It’s worth noting that after stalling its narrative engines over nine episodes, “Severance” ended its first season on a shamelessly cheap cliffhanger. The series premiered 16 months ago and was in the process of shooting Season 2 when the writers strike threw a wrench into things. Who knows when that long-awaited second season will arrive, but imagine if new episodes had started airing just three months later, following the old “Dallas” model. Now that would have kept things interesting.

Instead, streaming originals exist in these truncated, discrete pockets of time. And then poof, they’re gone and they might as well exist in limbo. A cliffhanger isn’t satisfying under those conditions, not in a way that generates real excitement and anticipation.

The original “Batman” series from the ‘60s relied on cliffhangers, but it did so with a promise of dependability: “Tune in tomorrow — same Bat-time, same Bat-channel.”

Streaming refuses to make it easy. Figure it out yourself.

See you next time.

Maybe.

It’s been almost nine years since the life-changing event that forced Dwight White, then a defensive back on Northwestern University’s football team, to change his trajectory. White took a hit during practice that caused abdominal pain, which led to the revelation that he was born with one kidney, a condition called renal agenesis.

Medical professionals, sports staff and his parents advised White against playing football, but he made the decision to continue to play — until three weeks later, when he was hit in that same spot and had internal bleeding due to a renal contusion. Having never been hit there before, to now take two hits in such a short period of time made White decide in his junior year to walk away from the sport to which he’d dedicated his entire life.

“He said: ‘I can’t do this to my mom. I can’t have her worry at every game,’” White’s mother, LaWanda, said in 2014. “That touched me.”

Giving up football was traumatizing, White said.

“It was tough for a while because I truly did feel lost … especially for a young Black man with golden aspirations of playing at the next level, which would have been professionally eventually,” he said. “I didn’t know exactly who I was or who I could be at that point.”

White would go on to explore life outside the sports bubble with the financial support of the college. He got more involved with the Black population on campus to understand its needs. He spent time trying to intersect his old and new lives.

“I always had an academic/mentor/counselor through athletics, but (university staff) tried to point me in the direction of mental health counseling, actual therapy,” White said. “I remember very clearly, me rejecting it. I was like, ‘This is not going to do anything for me.’ I grew up with tough love, like a lot of us do. I did things and overcame things alone … and I was comfortable with that, personally, until I realized I wasn’t. So when I first got into therapy, it was a couple of sessions in and I slowly trickled out.”

That’s when he discovered art as a healing tool.

“Sitting down with myself …. thinking what can bring me joy in the future as I continue my studies and graduate, I would hang out alone with my thoughts and that’s how I began to communicate, was through art,” he said. “While I was quiet, the creative process started flowing: ‘Y’all come look at this. This is what I have to say.’”

Since White left Northwestern in 2016, he’s been saying a lot through art centered on the Black experience, melding oil paints and acrylics, sociology and experiential design into socially-driven work. White’s colorful murals can be seen around Chicagoland. One is on West Ida B. Wells Parkway between Plymouth Court and Dearborn Street in the Printers Row area. And his creativity has been utilized by brands such as Nike, Levi’s and Pinterest.

The Houston native also spends his time curating art into experiences like Something I Can Feel, an annual event for the Black community that features fine art, street art, music, fashion, design and the artists behind the pieces. The celebration of Blackness launches on Juneteenth, June 19, with a floral design workshop with Planks and Pistils, a Chicago-based floral studio that uses art to highlight Black stories, and a hat customization workshop with artist Samantha Turner.

The Something I Can Feel event has over two dozen free wellness programs that focus on healing through yoga, mental health talks and live music. White said he tries to make Something I Can Feel a holistic experience that uplifts and empowers by focusing on social connectivity and the Black experience.

“A lot of times going to experiences and being in community and just showing up sometimes is good loving on yourself,” he said.

White is a proponent for mental health at a time when Cook County is seeing an increase in reported symptoms of anxiety and depression in historically marginalized communities, according to recent data from Mental Health America of Illinois. White says getting mental health help from someone who looks like you and who shares your experience can make all the difference, and that’s a need that Something I Can Feel fills.

“One thing that has been special about the collective of creatives that I’ve been able to work with is a lot of us, including myself, are open to talking about our mental health journeys because it’s so prominent in our daily practice as artists, entrepreneurs, as Black people,” White said. “We’ve been there and we all have that mindset of struggle. My struggle in athletics eventually led to my struggle in corporate America, which eventually transitioned to my struggle as a full-time artist and that’s the story I want to share.”

Former Chicago Bears defensive back Ryan Mundy shared his mental health story at a collaborative event May 24 between the NFL team and SocialWorks, Chance the Rapper’s youth empowerment nonprofit. The nonprofit conducted a week of programming on how wellness can be incorporated into daily lives. Mundy is founder of the mental health mobile app Alkeme Health, which offers courses, meditations and even live experiences on the platform.

Like White, Mundy experienced a period of transition. When he retired after 24 years as an athlete, he had to figure out life without sports.

“I definitely couldn’t picture anything beyond football. A little over 30 and still a lot of life to live but I don’t know how to live it or how to navigate it,” he said. “Also going inside my family, there were a lot of things on the chronic health side of things. I was in networks and relationships to understand business, entrepreneurship. And then I started to put two and two together about what I was going through, what my family was going through and having a desire to fill a massive void in the marketplace, I started Alkeme.”

Mundy took the reins of his mental health — “smiling on the outside, but struggling on the inside” he once said on the “Today” show — and created an avenue of help for the Black community. His app launched in 2022. The core demographic is Black millennials, but Mundy said the goal is to serve kids and adults.

“Maintaining our focus on Black mental health, a lot of people identify with that and find themselves in some of the products and content that we put onto the world,” he said. “We take licensed clinical professionals and build video courses with them to break down complex topics such as generational trauma, being Black in the workplace, etc. Starting in 2024, we will start to deliver and connect people with one-on-one therapy on our platform.”

Knowing money, fame and fortune don’t translate to peace, joy and fulfillment, Mundy and White are paying mental health forward.

“It felt part of my responsibility to show us what it looks like to celebrate Blackness through art and creativity and to be showing ourselves love,” White said. “I was reborn here (in Chicago). I know and recognize what it did for me, so I try and return that which was poured into me.”

©2023 Chicago Tribune. Visit chicagotribune.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

However, this tale in which personified Fire, Water, Earth and Air residents live together in the metropolis Element City finds its footing as it leans on tried-and-true plot devices from romances featuring star-crossed lovers and stories about parents and their children.

“Elemental” is inspired by the experiences of its director, Peter Sohn, a second-generation immigrant, his parents bringing him to the United States from Korea when he was a child. He’d go on to marry an American woman after initially hiding the relationship from his family. (He says in the film’s production notes that his grandmother’s dying words literally were “Marry Korean!”)

Bursting with vibrant colors, the gorgeous affair begins by introducing a Fire couple, Bernie (Ronnie del Carmen) and Cinder Lumen (Shila Ommi), arriving by boat from the Fireland to start a new life, bringing with them only a blue flame representing their past and people. After a not-so-hot introduction to Element City — least structurally hospitable to the Fire folks, as they were the last to arrive and make a place for themselves — the Lumens find a spot in the Firetown neighborhood. They open up a shop, the Fireplace, and, more importantly, have a baby girl, Ember.

Years later, the grown Ember (Leah Lewis) is set to inherit the shop from her retirement-age father, but she has a tendency of becoming, well, hot when it comes to the behavior of customers. She desperately wants to please her dad, but she must show she can keep her relative cool before he hands over the Fireplace to her.

The residents of Firetown live in fear of water, so when a leak happens in the store, it’s a big problem. Unfortunately for Ember, who discovers it, washing in with all the H2O is a Water fellow, Wade Ripple (Mamoudou Athie). He’s a city inspector, and he believes the Fireplace is in violation of various building codes.

After initially sending in his report to the city higher-ups, the good-natured Wade agrees to help Ember in her efforts to keep the business running.

At first glance, the two couldn’t be more different. She’s tough, strong-willed and, yes, fiery. He’s soppy and sappy, like other members of his fluid family prone to bursting into tears the moment he hears something emotionally stirring. Ironically, though, considering his kind’s natural malleability, he’s a very solid guy, as Ember grows to appreciate.

That doesn’t change the fact that if they get too close, he could extinguish her or she could evaporate him. Even if they somehow find a way past that, Ember believes her parents would never accept him, her proud but stubborn father especially.

As we’ve come to expect from Pixar, “Elemental” is consistently inventive, certainly with its visuals. You don’t want to take your eyes off Element City or its residents, especially Ember, her ever-burning form no doubt the work of myriad artistic and technical folks. The blobby but buoyant Wade is a pretty neat creation, as well.

Penned by John Hoberg, Kat Likkel and Brenda Hsueh, with a story by Sohn, Hoberg, Likkel and Hsueh, “Elemental” serves up more than the requisite of situational puns, one Fire character calling another a “lazy ash.” Again, though, it grows increasingly affecting, the film is likely to give you at least a mild case of the feels before its end credits roll.

Summer movie preview: ‘Guardians of the Galaxy,’ ‘Indiana Jones,’ ‘The Flash’ and ‘Fast X’ lead appealing slate

As Pixar films sometimes do, it largely eschews the casting of big names but gets strong work from its key players. Lewis (“The Half of It”) really helps bring Ember to vivid life, while Athie (“Jurassic World: Dominion”) infuses Wade with an appealing steady-Eddie if also deeply compassionate vibe.

And in portraying a character who seems to have borrowed, um, elements from different ethnic groups, del Carmen (co-director of Pixar’s “Inside Out”) brings a dimensionality to Bernie that is revealed over time.

The most easily recognizable voice is that of Catherine O’Hara (“Best in Show,” “Schitt’s Creek”), who brings a little pizazz to Brook, Wade’s mother, who is very accepting of Ember.

Like many PIxar efforts in recent years, including an Academy Award winner or two and 2015’s Sohn-directed “The Good Dinosaur,” “Elemental” doesn’t reside among the studio’s best work, such as 2009’s “Up.”

(By the way, “Elemental” is preceded by “Carl’s Date,” a cute “Up”-verse short film featuring Ed Asner returning to voice charming curmudgeon Carl, who gets advice about the opposite sex from talking dog Dug, voiced by director Bob Peterson.)

That said, “Elemental” has enough winning elements to make time for it in the busy summer season.

‘Elemental’

Where: Theaters.

When: June 16.

Rated: PG for some peril, thematic elements and brief language.

Runtime: 1 hour, 42 minutes.

Stars (of four): 3.

On the bookshelves, I mean. Based on the novels I’ve got on my list to read in the next few months, it looks like it’s going to be a great summer.

Check out the criminal pursuits we’ve covered just in the last few weeks. I got the opportunity to talk with “Razorblade Tears” author S.A. Cosby about his acclaimed new novel, “All the Sinners Bleed.” My colleague Samantha Dunn interviewed Eliza Jane Brazier about her murder mystery “Girls and Their Horses.” Regular contributor Michael Schaub talked to Ivy Pochoda about her hard-hitting novel “Sing Her Down.”

It turns out I’m not the only one who thinks that this suggests even more fine work to come. Novelist Jordan Harper, who published the excellent “Everybody Knows” earlier this year, says it’s an especially good time for the genre.

“This is a monster year for crime fiction, a monster year,” says Harper, who spoke by phone while walking a WGA picket line this week. “I think we’re in the middle of a not-yet-recognized renaissance in very well-executed crime fiction in America right now.”

Speculating on the next round of Mystery Writers of America awards, aka the Edgars, Harper expects a tough competition for those involved.

“The Edgar Awards for Best Book next year is going to be a knife fight,” says Harper. “A lot of really great books are getting written right now.”

So which titles should you be on the lookout for? As well as the ones mentioned above, here are 12, including some already out and more we can’t wait for.

Dennis Lehane, “Small Mercies” (out now)

Rumored to be the crime fiction legend’s final book, Lehane sets his first novel since 2017 during the 1974 Boston school desegregation crisis. Both Harper and Cosby mentioned this book to me, and as for it being Lehane’s last? Maybe. “I don’t know. If it is, I’m OK with that,” the author told NPR’s Scott Simon.

Megan Abbott, “Beware the Woman” (out now)

This is already in stores, lucky readers, and we have an interview with the author posting soon. But look, why not let Harper make the case: “Megan Abbott, to me, is the best of us. I think she’s spectacular,” he says.

Daniel Weizmann, “The Last Songbird” (out now)

In this gritty debut, a failed songwriter works as a Lyft driver in L.A., often providing rides for a folk icon who is later found murdered. Concerned with the corrosive effects of fame, this neo-noir is the first in the proposed series. Fun fact: Weizmann wrote for the fanzine Flipside under the name Shredder.

Yukito Ayatsuji & translated by Ho-Ling Wong, “The Mill House Murders” (out now)

This Japanese classic is a locked room mystery that features a remote location, a rubber mask-wearing recluse, and a stolen painting. Oh, and murder! While this new edition has just hit stores, you might start with “The Decagon House Murders,” the author’s debut and the first with detective Kiyoshi Shimada.

Colson Whitehead, “Crook Manifesto” (July 18)

Picking up where he left off in his previous novel, “Harlem Shuffle,” Whitehead sets this novel in 1970s New York City when crime – and uncollected trash on the streets – is on the rise. The two-time Pulitzer Prize winner is always worth your attention, but the fact that Jackson 5 tickets are involved makes this a must-read.

Silvia Moreno-Garcia, “Silver Nitrate” (July 18) 

This one by the “Mexican Gothic” author appears full of horror and suspense – a cult film director into Nazi occultism needs to finish an abandoned film to lift the curse hanging over him. But as it also involves a talented woman whose work is overlooked by the men in her industry, it sounds like a crime as well.

Naomi Hirahara, “Evergreen” (August 1)

In this follow-up to Hirahara’s much-praised “Clark & Division,” Aki Ito and her family return to post-WWII Southern California where Japanese American families are finding things have changed during their forced relocations and incarcerations. Aki, who’s working as a nurse in Boyle Heights, learns troubling information – and there’s a murder in Little Tokyo. Can’t wait for this one.

Adrian McKinty, “The Detective Up Late” (August 8)

You know how the state of the world can sometimes seem irredeemably awful? The fact that we’re getting a new Sean Duffy novel from Adrian McKinty is proof that wonderful things happen. Known for bestsellers “The Chain” and “The Island,” McKinty has been writing a multi-novel masterpiece about a Belfast detective during the Troubles that you need to read. This is the seventh book (and not the last, I hear) so start reading now so you’ll be ready when it hits stores.

Lee Goldberg, “Malibu Burning” (Sept. 1)

TV veteran and novelist Goldberg is such a successful and prolific writer that I literally got word that he’ll have another book publishing after this one before the year is out (it’s called “Calico”). In this thriller, Goldberg sets the story in the tony Malibu hills during a wildfire kicked up by the Santa Ana winds.

Tod Goldberg, “Gangsters Don’t Die” (September 12)

This is the conclusion of Goldberg’s outstanding trilogy about Chicago hitman Sal Cupertine, who’s on the run from the Mafia, the feds and everyone else who want him dead. That a merciless killer reinvents himself as Rabbi David Cohen, a remarkably effective (and sure, deadly) man of faith is just one of the series’ many, many charms. (And yes, he and Lee are brothers.)

Mick Herron, “The Secret Hours” (September)

As those who read this newsletter know, I’m a big fan of Herron’s Slough House series, which manages to be intriguing, funny, satirical and moving. (The Apple TV+ adaption “Slow Horses” is aces as well.) So all I need to say is that Herron’s next book is a stand-alone about a MI5 mission in Cold War Berlin, and trust me I’ll be reading it – or listening to Gerard Doyle’s excellent audio narration.

Jonathan Lethem, “Brooklyn Crime Novel” (October)

Sure, this comes out way past summer and, according to early blurbs, it might not exactly be a crime novel. But as anyone who loved “Motherless Brooklyn” knows, Lethem is very good in the genre so I’m just putting it down here anyway (because I’m going to read it whatever it’s about).

OK, I’m sure as soon as I publish this list I’ll get my hands on more good stuff that I should have included – such as Joe Ide’s latest IQ book “Fixit” or Eryk Pruitt’s “Something Bad Wrong” or Heather Chavez’s “Before She Finds Me” or Lou Berney’s “Dark Ride” – so consider this a starter list, something to refer to when you get stuck at the bookstore or library, and then start adding to it.

• • •

What else are you looking forward to reading this summer? Please feel free to email me at epedersen@scng.com with “ERIK’S BOOK PAGES” in the subject line and I may include your comments in an upcoming newsletter.

And if you enjoy this free newsletter, please consider sharing it with someone who likes books or getting a digital subscription to support local coverage.

Thanks, as always, for reading.

Héctor Tobar on James Joyce, Dr. Seuss and his favorite book

Héctor Tobar is the author of  “The Tattooed Soldier” and “The Barbarian Nurseries,” and his book “Deep Down Dark: The Untold Stories of 33 Men Buried in a Chilean Mine and the Miracle That Set Them Free,” was a bestseller that was adapted into the film, “The 33.” Tobar spoke with Michael Schaub about “Our Migrant Souls: A Meditation on Race and the Meanings and Myths of ‘Latino,’” and responded to the Book Pages Q&A about books and reading.

Q: What are you reading now?

Three very different books by three women. Virginia Woolf’s “To the Lighthouse,” in a wonderful audiobook performance by Nicole Kidman; “The Employees,” a sci-fi novella by the Danish poet Olga Ravn; and “A Country You Can Leave,” a first novel from Asale Angel-Ajani.

Q: Do you remember the first book that made an impact on you?

“The Jungle,” by Upton Sinclair. My father had read it in his community college classes. I remember the powerful imagery of the Chicago stockyards and meat packing plants. I think it was also an introduction to the idea that literature could expose you to great truths. Then, in college, I picked up Richard Wright’s “Native Son.” That book gave me the idea that I might want to be a writer myself.

Q: Is there a book you’re nervous to read?

Approaching Joyce’s “Ulysses” always makes me a bit nervous. With the help of the podcast by the charismatic, late Frank Delaney, I’ve made deep progress into it.

Q: Do you have a favorite book or books?

I’ve owned many different editions of the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language since I was 11 years old. It’s such a beautiful thing to hold, for the illustrations and for the wonderful, illuminating word histories. In terms of literature, the work of Roberto Bolaño never ceases to blow me away.

Q: Which books do you plan, or hope, to read next?

“Bad Indians: A Tribal Memoir,” by Deborah A. Miranda. And I’m going to re-read Daniel Borzutzky’s powerful poetry collection “The Performance of Becoming Human.” I was recently on the Pulitzer jury that chose Hernan Diaz’s “Trust” as a finalist (it was one of the eventual winners), and now I want to read his novel “In the Distance.”

Q: Is there a person who made an impact on your reading life – a teacher, a parent, a librarian or someone else?

One of my earliest memories of school is of my kindergarten teacher at Grant Elementary in East Hollywood telling my mother to buy me Dr. Seuss. My college mentor Roberto Crespi at UC Santa Cruz turned me on to so much great literature, as did my colleagues when I was a twenty-something reporter at the Los Angeles Times.

Q: If you could ask your readers something, what would it be?

Did you like any of my books? If you didn’t make it to the end of one of my books, what kept you from finishing? And if you made it to the end of any of them: Can I buy you a cup of coffee to talk about it?

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The field of personalized nutrition, sometimes referred to as precision nutrition, is making important advancements thanks to artificial intelligence (AI) and research funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

AI uses computers to perform human-like decision-making and problem-solving. The NIH Nutrition for Precision Health (NPH) study will use AI to create and validate algorithms to predict individual responses to foods and eating patterns. This study is part of a larger All of Us research initiative to better understand how individual human biology influences the effects of diet and environmental, behavioral and social factors on health using data from one million study participants from across the United States.

Precision nutrition is the evaluation of factors like genetics, health data, the microbiome and metabolic responses to food and eating patterns to help choose foods and diets to prevent or treat illness within individuals. For example, previous studies have shown that people consuming identical diets will have different responses in blood glucose, insulin and triglycerides. The findings from the NPH study will have the potential to enrich the field of nutrition, providing data to better individualize nutrition recommendations.

Well-designed studies that look at the role of nutrition in health are important because common causes of death among Americans including cardiovascular disease, diabetes and cancer are nutrition-related. While precision nutrition using artificial intelligence is cutting-edge now, NIH believes that it will become a part of mainstream medical care by 2030. General tips like “drink eight cups of water per day for hydration” and “cut back on sugar for diabetes” could be obsolete due to access to precision nutrition.

Findings from the NPH study will likely help healthcare providers and nutrition experts provide more individualized, evidenced-based nutrition and food recommendations than ever before. While only time will tell how AI will impact daily life, it is already aiming to improve the nutrition and health of humans.

In the meantime, here are some important strategies to create an individualized nutrition and wellness routine:

1. Meet with a registered dietitian to create an individualized nutrition plan that takes into account your family and individual medical history, lab results, lifestyle, fitness and health goals and other factors.
2. Create an eating schedule that works for your lifestyle and nutrition needs.
3. Focus on good sleep hygiene for adequate, high-quality sleep which supports healthy hormones and a sharp mind.
4. Eat a wide variety of nutrient-dense foods.
5. Keep a food journal to increase awareness about your eating habits and to find areas for improvement.
6. Set realistic health goals that are both specific and can be measured by time such as “to walk 30 minutes on weekdays” or “to lower my cholesterol level by 10 percent in six months”.
7. Avoid the hype of trendy foods and diets that are not backed by science.

LeeAnn Weintraub, MPH, RD is a registered dietitian, providing nutrition counseling and consulting to individuals, families and organizations. She can be reached by email at RD@halfacup.com.

Roughly two in three (66%) U.S. adults have a negative view about tipping, according to the survey. Americans said they believe businesses should pay employees better rather than relying so much on tips (41%), they’re annoyed about pre-entered tip screens (32%), they feel that tipping culture has gotten out of control (30%), they’re confused about who and how much to tip (15%), and they would be willing to pay higher prices if we could do away with tipping (16%).

Despite annoyances, people haven’t stopped tipping for everyday services. More than two-fifths (44%) of U.S. adults who dine at sit-down restaurants typically tip at least 20%. But when it comes to many tipped services, such as hair stylists, food delivery, taxis and more, everyone approaches tipping differently. Here’s how people feel about tipping in 2023.

Gen Zers and men tip the least of any demographic

The frequency of U.S. adults tipping has declined steadily since 2019, according to Bankrate. In 2023, fewer people say they always tip workers in every category:

Source: CreditCards.com survey, June 16-18, 2021; CreditCards.com survey, May 11-13, 2022; Bankrate survey, May 3-5, 2023

People who dine at sit-down restaurants say they always tip their servers — more frequently than those who use any other kind of service — but that percentage of people fell from 73% in 2022 to 65% in 2023. Over three-fourths (77%) of people who dine at sit-down restaurants always tipped their server in 2019. Similar trends are true for food delivery workers, taxi or rideshare drivers and other tipped services.

Most significantly, the percentage of people who always tip their hair stylists, hairdresser or barber fell from 66% in 2022 to 53% in 2023.

Nearly two in three diners always tip their waiters at sit-down restaurants

Servers and waitstaff at sit-down restaurants are most likely (65%) to always receive a tip from customers of any tipped service, followed by hair stylists. Additionally, 50% of those who use food delivery services, such as meals from restaurants or groceries delivered through apps like Uber Eats and DoorDash, will always tip:

Source: Bankrate survey, May 3-5, 2023

People who use home services or repair, who pick up takeout food and who receive furniture or appliance delivery are the least likely to say they always tip: One in ten (10%) of those who use home services or repair always tip, as well as 17% of those who receive furniture or appliance delivery and 13% of those who pick up takeout food.

The tendency to tip differs widely between demographics like age, gender and location. Generally, men are less likely to always tip than women are. Most significantly, 60% of women who go to a hair stylist always tip, compared to 46% of men. Men also tip waiters, food delivery workers and other categories less frequently than women:

—Waiters at sit-down restaurants: 70% of women, 60% of men

—Hair stylists/barbers: 60% of women, 46% of men

—Food delivery workers: 54% of women, 45% of men

—Taxi/rideshare drivers: 45% of women, 36% of men

The tendency to always tip for a service increases as people age. Gen Z is generally the least likely to always tip for a service, while baby boomers are generally the most likely.

The difference between generations is largest for those who go to hairdressers, hair stylists or barbers. Only 24% of Gen Z who go to hair stylists always tip, while nearly three times as many baby boomers (70%) who use the service always tip.

Additionally, Gen Zers are significantly less likely than baby boomers to always tip when they eat at a sit-down restaurant (35% compared to 83%), get food delivery (31% compared to 62%) or use taxis or rideshares (22% compared to 56%).

The only exception in generational trends is for home services or repairs. Gen Z is actually the most likely (15%) to always tip for home service or repairs, a tendency that decreases in every generation. Only 6% of baby boomers who use home services or repairs always tip.

Midwesterners are 16% more likely to always tip at a sit-down restaurant than Southerners or Westerners

The Midwestern stereotype of “Minnesota nice” also applies to their tipping habits. Midwesterners are more likely to always tip for several services than people in other regions.

Most significantly, 77% of Midwesterners who dine at sit-down restaurants always tip, compared to 67% of Northeasterners and 61% of both Southerners and Westerners.

However, Northeasterners say they are likely to always tip in two out of the nine total categories. Over one in three (35%) of Northeasterners who use hotel housekeeping always tip, compared to 23% of Westerners, 20% of Southerners and 19% of Midwesterners.

Similarly, 25% of Northeasterners who use furniture and appliance delivery always tip, compared to 18% of Westerners, 16% of Southerners and 10% of Midwesterners.

Nearly 1 in 3 Americans think tipping culture has gotten out of control

Americans can be quite confused about when and how much to tip in 2023. Though more businesses, like coffee shops and food trucks, encourage tipping during payment, not everyone likes being encouraged to tip, especially if the suggestions are a high amount. Around one in three (30%) U.S. adults told Bankrate they think tipping culture has gotten out of control. Older Americans tend to think tipping culture has gotten out of control more frequently than younger generations:

—Gen Z: 22%

—Millennials: 27%

—Gen X: 33%

—Baby boomers: 33%

Tipped workers receive a federal minimum wage of $2.13 per hour, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, amid the expectation they’ll make a higher income through tipping. According to Bankrate, two in five (41%) U.S. adults feel businesses should pay their employees better rather than relying so much on tips, the most common negative feeling about tipping.

In total, 66% of people had at least one negative feeling about tipping. Only 7% of people didn’t agree with any statement on tipping:

Source: Bankrate survey, May 3-5, 2023

Pre-entered tipping suggestions were the second-most common negative feeling for Americans. Nearly one in three (32%) of U.S. adults are annoyed by tip suggestions, and 18% said they tend to tip less, or not at all, when they’re presented with the screens. Only 9% say they tip more.

“Inflation and general economic unease seem to be making Americans stingier with their tipping habits, yet we’re confronted with more invitations to tip than ever,” Bankrate Senior Industry Analyst Ted Rossman said. “It’s a fascinating issue with few clear answers. There is one apparent certainty, though: Tipping doesn’t seem likely to leave American society anytime soon.”

Sixteen percent of U.S. adults say they’re willing to pay higher prices if American culture could do away with tipping. Younger Americans are more likely to say they’re willing to pay more: 21% of millennials and 18% of Gen Zers compared to 13% of Gen Xers and 12% of baby boomers.

Other pain points include being confused about who and how much to tip (15%) and saying that they’re tipping less since COVID-19 (9%).

Not all Americans feel negatively about tipping -— many are still tipping well. Nearly one in two (44%) of U.S. adults who dine at sit-down restaurants say they typically tip at least 20%. Most commonly, 57% of baby boomers typically tip 20%, followed by 50% of Gen Xers, 34% of millennials and 25% of Gen Zers.

Tipping can be a positive emotion, too: 35% of U.S. adults say they feel good when they leave a generous tip. In contrast to those who have been tipping less since the pandemic, 14% of U.S. adults say they’re tipping more since COVID-19.

Guidelines when deciding how much to tip

Tipping can be confusing; it may seem like the suggested guidelines are always changing. Because tipped workers rely on that money to pay their bills, Rossman suggests tipping 20% as a standard practice. But that can be tricky when you’re paying for inexpensive services, such as a coffee, or if you need to pay more than one worker. Here are a few tips to keep in mind:

—In personalized services, tip every worker who helps you. Are you at a hair salon, and two different workers cut and dye your hair? Or did you hire three workers to help you move? If you received individual, personalized service from several people, tip each person to thank them for their skilled work.

—Leave at least a small amount for inexpensive services. You probably don’t need to break out a calculator to figure out how to tip for a coffee. Generally, for services around $5 or less, leaving a dollar or your extra change in a tip jar will be plenty.

—Keep some cash on hand — but you may need to pull up an app. Cash is best for some services like valet parking and hotel housekeeping, where tips typically aren’t suggested when you pay for the service. If you pay for a service that doesn’t allow you to tip at the end, ask the worker if you can tip them through a peer-to-peer payment platform like Venmo or Zelle. Some companies don’t allow their workers to receive tips, but it never hurts to ask.

—2023 survey: Bankrate commissioned YouGov Plc to conduct the survey. All figures, unless otherwise stated, are from YouGov Plc. Total sample size was 2,437 U.S. adults. Fieldwork was undertaken May 3-5, 2023.2022 & 2021 surveys: CreditCards.com commissioned YouGov Plc to conduct the survey on tipping habits. CreditCards.com is owned by Bankrate’s parent company, Red Ventures.2022: Total sample size was 2,610 adults. Fieldwork was undertaken between May 11- 13, 2022.2021: Total sample size was 2,573 adults. Fieldwork was undertaken between June 16- 18, 2021. The figures have been weighted and are representative of all US adults (aged 18+). The survey was carried out online and meets rigorous quality standards. It employed a nonprobability-based sample using both quotas upfront during collection and then a weighting scheme on the back end designed and proven to provide nationally representative results.

©2023 Bankrate.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

We asked five money experts to share their best personal finance strategies to help this year’s college grads successfully launch their financial lives. Here’s what they said.

Find your budgeting style

To figure out how to allocate your money toward needs, wants and everything else, Erin Lowry, author of the “Broke Millennial Workbook,” says that instead of following the latest budgeting trend on TikTok, it’s helpful to just sit down with a pen and paper. “Write down what your big expenses are,” she says.

After accounting for large items like rent, car payments and food, you can then see what nonessentials also fit. “You might want to go out to dinner with friends, build up new work attire or adopt a dog,” Lowry says. Writing out the budget helps you figure out what you can afford and when, she adds.

“We conceive of budgets as restrictive things that keep us from having fun, but you should be thinking of it as a way of controlling how your money is spent. If you don’t know, you’ve sacrificed all control,” Lowry says.

Factor in taxes

Melissa Jean-Baptiste, a financial educator and the author of the book “So… This Is Why I’m Broke,” says it’s easy to forget to account for taxes, so you might have less take-home pay than you anticipated. Retirement contributions and other deductions can further lower that amount.

Jean-Baptiste suggests setting aside some time to really understand your first paycheck and all those deductions. “Take yourself on a money date so you understand how much you’re bringing home and how much you have left to save and invest,” she says.

Save smartly

Even if they’re paying off debt, Alex Rezzo, a certified financial planner and the founder of Andante Financial in the Los Angeles area, urges new grads to start saving for retirement right away. “There will always be a more immediate excuse to delay saving for retirement,” he says, but he urges people to find a way to save at least 1% of each paycheck and to increase that amount over time.

He also suggests parking your direct-deposited paycheck funds in an online bank that offers a competitive high-yield account and is backed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. That way, the money likely will earn more than it would sitting in a traditional bank’s checking or savings account.

Protect your credit

As you build your independent financial life, making at least the minimum payments on your student loan and credit card accounts can help protect your credit. Missing a payment, Lowry says, could damage your credit score. She suggests focusing on paying down any high-interest debt first to reduce the total amount going to interest.

Lowry also suggests freezing or locking your credit, which makes it much harder for identity thieves to apply for new credit in your name. Just remember that if you freeze your credit, you’ll also have to thaw it if you want to apply for credit yourself, she says, adding, “you might want to wait until you’re through a period of time when you’re applying for new accounts.”

Make mistakes and learn from them

Kennedy Reynolds, chief education officer at Acorns, a financial services company, says mistakes are part of the learning process, whether it’s overspending or accruing credit card debt, but the key is to learn from the experience. “If you have debt to pay down, take that paycheck and split it up” toward those bills until they are paid off, she says.

“Try to picture yourself later and know that the choices you’re making now will have a long-term impact,” she adds.

Look beyond your paycheck

Linda Whiteman, a personal finance teacher at Outschool, an online learning platform for kids, teaches her students to think entrepreneurially. After all, she tells them, most millionaires are business owners.

“You don’t have to work for someone,” she says. She asks her students to consider what they can teach others, whether offering piano lessons online or creating digital art. Pursuing additional income streams outside of a paycheck can help grow wealth, she adds.

Jean-Baptiste found success doing exactly that: She used her experience as a teacher to create and sell lesson plans online. “I was bringing in $10,000 a year that I could put toward debt,” she says. Her lesson plans eventually turned into the financial literacy business that she operates today.

Earning additional income outside of a paycheck, she says, “can be a game-changer” — financial wisdom that applies at any age.

This article was written by NerdWallet and was originally published by The Associated Press.

More From NerdWallet

Former President Donald Trump, now facing a federal indictment, was caught on tape admitting he was in possession of a secret military document at a 2021 meeting at his New Jersey golf resort, according to a transcript of the damning audiotape reported on Friday.

“As president, I could have declassified. But now I can’t,” Trump says on the tape, according to the transcript obtained by CNN.

Trump, who on Thursday was reportedly charged with seven counts for taking hundreds of classified documents to his Mar-a-Lago resort after leaving office, was discussing a secret U.S. plan to attack Iran in a meeting with researchers for an unrelated book project at his Bedminster resort.

According to the tape transcript, the former president then flashes a document that he boasts is highly classified.

“It’s, like, confidential. This is secret information. Look, look at this,” Trump adds, according to the transcript. “This was done by the military and given to me.”

The transcript report came hours after Trump announced that he had been indicted on charges stemming from his taking classified documents to his Florida resort after leaving office. It makes Trump the first former president in U.S. history to face federal criminal charges even as he leads the race for the Republican presidential nomination by a wide margin.

He could face a trial in the midst of a 2024 White House campaign and the possibility of a prison sentence if convicted.

The Justice Department did not immediately confirm the indictment publicly and would normally be expected to unveil the charging documents on Tuesday afternoon when Trump says he has been summoned to appear in Miami federal court.

A Trump defense lawyer said the charges include retaining classified documents, obstruction of justice, violations of the espionage act and conspiracy.

Trump shook up his legal team within hours of the indictment. He said Todd Blanche, a veteran and respected white collar defense lawyer, will lead the defense team for the case that will unfold in south Florida starting next week. His previous lawyers, Jim Trusty and John Rowley, resigned Friday.

In a shocking twist, Trump’s case was initially assigned to controversial right-wing federal District Judge Aileen Cannon, ABC News first reported.

It was not immediately clear if Cannon would preside over only the arraignment or the entire case.

Cannon, a Trump appointee, made several pro-Trump rulings that legal experts derided as legally unfounded. Her actions delayed the investigation into the documents until they were overturned by higher courts.

Trump wasted no time lashing out at the indictment filed by special counsel Jack Smith, a dogged former Brooklyn prosecutor.

“I am an innocent man,” Trump declared on his social media site late Thursday night. “This is … a continuation of the greatest witch hunt of all time.”

Republican leaders, including most of his GOP presidential rivals, quickly backed the former president, reflecting his strong grip on the the party. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is a distant second in most polls to Trump, blasted the Justice Department for targeting the ex-president.

“Why so zealous in pursuing Trump yet so passive about Hillary or Hunter?” tweeted DeSantis, referring to GOP bogeymen Hillary Clinton and presidential son Hunter Biden.

President Joe Biden, the likely Democratic candidate in 2024, has not commented on the indictment.

Trump took some 300 classified documents after exiting the White House in January 2021, according to prosecutors.

After months of haggling with federal archives officials, he returned several boxes. But prosecutors demanded the rest of them, prompting them to hit him with a subpoena. Trump lawyers handed over some documents and signed a statement that they conducted a “diligent search” that revealed no additional classified materials.

But prosecutors later became convinced that Trump was hiding even more documents, leading to a bombshell judge-approved search that turned up about more than 100 of the additional classified documents.

The documents found by the feds reportedly include some that described the nuclear capabilities of a foreign power and others that could expose American spies and intelligence methods. Some of the most sensitive documents were found in Trump’s personal office.

The case adds to fast-deepening legal jeopardy for Trump, who has already been charged with state crimes in New York related to hush money paid to porn star Stormy Daniels.

Trump, 77, also faces a separate probe by Smith for his effort to overturn his loss to Biden in the 2020 election that culminated with the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

There are also serious civil legal woes like the sprawling fraud case filed by New York Attorney General Letitia James against Trump’s eponymous real estate company.

———

©2023 New York Daily News. Visit at nydailynews.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Maureen Ryan can’t deny it, as she writes in her first book: “Burn It Down: Power, Complicity and a Call for Change in Hollywood.” For much of her life, the former Chicago Tribune and Variety critic and reporter couldn’t get enough of the grisly, salacious show-business lore spawned by the tyrants, the predators, the power structure, the bias, the damage, the wreckage. The all of it.

She “consumed these narratives like candy,” she writes in her book. “Horrible behavior — hundreds of pages of it — in ‘Live from New York,’ the oral history of ‘Saturday Night Live’? Of course I devoured the whole thing. When I was coming up, not only as a consumer of popular culture but as someone who wrote about the industry, these narratives — dishy stories of industry people behaving badly — were, in and of themselves, a popular subgenre of entertainment.”

Change, and some real consequences when it came to a conspicuous handful, came in 2017 with MeToo and the fall of Harvey Weinstein. Meantime, increasingly widespread pushback on racial, financial and gender inequities in Hollywood — inequities Hollywood set in quick-drying cement a century ago — gathered momentum.

Yet a lot of the old structural biases remain in place, even if things are fairer now. Better. Mostly. Partly? Depends on who you talk to. In “Burn It Down,” Ryan, now a contributing editor to Vanity Fair, collates a wide range of stories, examples and evidence of how some shows, such as the ABC-TV hit “Lost,” were also amiss in terms of what was going on behind the scenes. Already widely read, Ryan’s chapter on the rancor behind the making of “Lost” was excerpted this month in Vanity Fair.

“Burn It Down” (available June 6 from HarperCollins) canvases dozens of sources and interview subjects, drawing together stories of bullying, humiliating, rage-aholic producers such as Scott Rudin — who, Ryan’s sources suspect, will be back in action soon enough. The second part of “Burn It Down” looks ahead to what needs to happen next — especially, Ryan says, since a certain weariness has begun to afflict both the industry and the public regarding the revelations of the last few years.

Ryan lives in Chicago’s western suburbs with her husband and their son. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Q: When did you get the idea that everything you’d learned needed to be dealt with in book form?

A: In 2020 and 2021, when we were all dealing with the pandemic. People were tired of various entertainment industry reckonings. I understand that feeling. I get tired of these topics, too, at times. But I also got the sense that people thought it was more or less fixed. Exploitation, abuse, racial bias, gender bias — all these affect Hollywood very deeply. People had begun to think that because some high-profile people made the news, it wasn’t going to happen anymore. In the first six months of 2021, it got frustrating to write about more and more unprofessional or even horrifying behavior being enabled and allowed to continue. I felt I was living inside some sort of rerun. “Groundhog Day,” you know. So I decided a book was my way of getting at how these outcomes were basically preordained, and had been for a century, because of the dynamics baked into the industry.

Q: In the book you write: “Opportunities to paint on the big canvases and scream at the little people are not distributed equally.”

A: For so long, many different forms of bullying or intimidation or outright abuse were filed under the heading of “creativity.” Creative license. But that wasn’t true for everyone. The opportunities were not handed to everyone. They may have been the norms, until recently. But we have to remember: For who?

Q: In “Burn It Down” you call out various A-listers who’ve worked with film and Broadway producer Scott Rudin, from Frances McDormand on down, who stayed mum when it came to showing any solidarity to those who accused the producer of some pretty grubby and violent behavior.

A: I still don’t understand it, to be honest. I don’t get the downside in standing in solidarity with those Scott Rudin abused. Just to say: “I’m going to do my level best in this industry to stop that kind of behavior and create a better culture.” Look, I understand why people are afraid of vindictive people or companies. But at some point, if your’re espousing a certain set of values, then you have to act on those views. Privately is one thing. Publicly is another.

Q: You write about the train wreck appeal to so many of us when it comes to megalomaniacal Hollywood. We eat these stories up. And as viewers — take “Succession,” say — there’s a sizable audience for whichever show nails the winning formula of “snake pit” plus “scads of money.”

A: You can’t deny the voyeuristic element to tales of bad behavior. We’re constantly watching these visions of terrible people doing terrible things, and often they’re done brilliantly as pieces of storytelling. But you know? Keep it on the screen, guys! I liked watching the Roy family being jerks to each other as much as anybody! But I wonder if we’ve been trained all these years to accept it behind the scenes.

I’m not saying all entertainment has to be squeaky-clean and goody-two-shoes. The people who make our entertainment don’t have to be perfect; we all have any number of flaws and neuroses. Just, you know, stop acting in ways that damaging to your co-workers over time. For too long Hollywood has said, basically, that it wouldn’t be a creative workplace environment if people weren’t being toxically damaging to each other. But it can be done. Look at (creator and director) Vince Gilligan; he did it twice, with “Breaking Bad” and “Better Call Saul.” As far as I heard, that’s a load of fascinatingly awful behavior being handled by good, responsible people behind the camera.

Q: For those who haven’t read what you wrote for Variety in 2017: Can you talk about what happened to you in 2014?

A: Sure. In 2014, I was physically assaulted by an industry executive. A number of things happened that evening, and they had a cataclysmic effect on my life. Also it came at a really tough time in my life. I struggled for a long time.

But it gave me something valuable. It gave me this absolutely ferocious understanding of what happens to someone who goes through something like that. And when they try to fix it in some way by reporting it to someone in authority. I understand what it feels like to worry about repercussions to your career, and to go through these processes that can damage you all over again.

Q: In the book you write a bit about your Chicago upbringing as the daughter of a cop, and a product of Catholic schooling. I know you’re a Buddhist now, but it sounds like you were raised a lot more Catholic than I was. I wonder if there’s some measure of atonement going on in secular Hollywood among the white male block of “creatives” who are starting to acknowledge they’ve had a pretty sweet deal all these years. And that change isn’t just inevitable; it’s plain right.

A: I think more people now have an awareness of the difficulties and obstacles other people face. There’s a different kind of awareness and honesty in the air now. Whether that translates to people from historically excluded communities getting into more positions of power — that’s still very much up in the air. It’s a hard conversation to have. But more and more people seem invested in trying to right these historic wrongs.

Q: Was there an emotional toll, revisiting and recounting everything that provoked this book?

A: When you embark on any ambitious project, you put on rose-colored glasses about what you’ll be able to accomplish and what it’ll take. But then, some weeks …. There was one week when I talked to a woman, funny, smart, brave, someone in the orbit of “Saturday Night Live.” (The woman spoke to Ryan under an alias. Earlier this year, she also anonymously spoke with ABC News “Nightline” regarding “SNL” cast member Horatio Sanz, whom the woman accused of sexual assault.) This was the same week I talked to a Cosby (alleged assault) survivor, whose story is harrowing. When I talk to people, especially the first or second time, it’s not unusual for me to talk for two or three hours. I want to answer their questions. And I want to give them space to tell their story and make them comfortable.

Weeks like that, I’m privileged to hear those stories and I’m grateful they’re willing to share them with me. You don’t get a ton of writing done in weeks like that.

Q: What’s your hope for the book’s reception?

A: Well, I’d much rather be writing about the cool stuff people are making (laughs). I don’t want to sound like a megalomaniac, the sort of megalomaniac I’ve covered. But since MeToo I hadn’t seen a book quite like this. Various reckonings have informed all kinds of books, often someone’s autobiography, or a look at a specific set of issues. But with this, I’m trying to take a bird’s-eye view of the industry as a whole. To use a phrase used by Orlando Jones: The Hollywood power structure was set up to produce this outcome. I wanted to look at that. And I hope there’s some value in it.

©2023 Chicago Tribune. Visit chicagotribune.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

America’s fascination with true crime is played for satire in the dark comedy “Based on a True Story,” a Peacock series starring Kaley Cuoco and Chris Messina as a married couple who, dollar signs in their eyes and bad judgment in their hearts, seize upon the opportunity to make a podcast with a serial killer.

Tonally, the eight-episode series teeters between slasher territory and the humor of domestic ennui. Ava and Nate’s marriage has grown stale, their professional ambitions thwarted. She’s a real estate agent who struggles to land high-end clients; he’s a tennis pro at the Beverly Club who has recently been demoted. To be clear, this is a very upper-middle-class kind of frustration, and while the show hints at some class issues, it doesn’t go far enough. Ava and Nate are not rich compared to their friends, but there’s an unspoken reality the show is sidestepping: In the Los Angeles housing market, that cozy home of theirs is worth millions. They’re also expecting their first child (the show incorporated Cuoco’s real-life pregnancy into the story), though it’s unclear how they feel about becoming parents. They seem neither excited nor anxious. The pregnancy is just sort of there, in the background, like their home’s faulty plumbing.

Stalled careers and annoying home repairs have made life dull, but the couple isn’t in desperate straits. They’re just restless and unhappy. So Ava seeks refuge in true crime stories, and when she and Nate suspect a new acquaintance might actually be a serial killer dubbed the West Side Ripper, a proposal is hatched: What if we made our own podcast, where the killer shares all but remains anonymous? It’s never been done before; surely riches will follow.

Not so simple! In over their heads, Ava and Nate are continually yanked around by this unpredictable man. (Peacock prefers the identity of the killer remain a spoiler, though it’s revealed in the first episode.) The threat of violence is always hovering around the edges and, as a result, Cuoco’s performance involves a lot of “shocked face.” She’s not mugging exactly — well, she is, but it’s a self-aware mugging and that’s part of the show’s sense of humor. But as a character, Ava is too underdeveloped, floating prettily through what she sees as a boring existence. A closer read on what actually makes her tick would have been interesting. Messina gets more to play with, as a man with a deeper, angrier sense of middle-aged resentment that he barely keeps suppressed below the surface.

Their main competitors in the podcast world are the wonderfully ludicrous Sisters in Crime (played by the very funny June Diane Raphael and Jessica St. Clair) who confidently assert that the great American art form isn’t music or film or television. No, America’s great art form is murder: “We watch it. We celebrate it. We obsess over it. And we commit it.” That captures the show’s approach, which is ridiculous and occasionally menacing but also entirely plausible. All the same, “Based on a True Story” isn’t looking to examine any of these ideas so much as play them for comedy and horror.

It’s an approach that’s propulsive and keeps you guessing, both skewering the ghoulishness of true crime while also indulging in it. That’s a neat, if somewhat dubious, trick. I like the show overall, but it doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. That’s OK — it can exist purely in the realm of upbeat, if sinister, high jinks, so long as we’re not pretending it’s saying something more. The show’s creator is Craig Rosenberg, who is an executive producer on the Amazon superhero satire “The Boys,” which also subverts and pokes a few holes in a popular genre.

Ava and Nate’s story is forever unraveling and it might have benefited from a clearer sense of what these two hope to achieve with the podcast. There’s not one substantive conversation about what happens if enough people believe they’re really platforming a killer, and while I think that’s true to life (we rarely fully anticipate the consequences of our decisions), the beauty of fiction is that it can imagine what that thought process might look and sound like.

The season ends on a cliffhanger — an unfinished thought, really — which I think is a mistake in the streaming era, with the uncertainty it has foisted upon the TV landscape. Who knows if that was Rosenberg’s choice or something Peacock pushed for, but the streamer has not indicated if the show is getting a renewal and, for some audiences, that may be reason enough to skip it altogether.

What about the podcast itself? We don’t hear much of it, or see the work that goes into putting it together (a task that is harder than the show would lead you to believe) but the killer is unhappy with an early edit and has plenty of ideas of his own. He’s trying to protect his brand “and you keep wasting time cutting to these other characters,” he says with some annoyance. The victims’ families are just a distraction from the main event.

What a savage comment on how hollow many of these projects actually are.

———

‘BASED ON A TRUE STORY’

2.5 stars (out of 4)

Rating: TV-MA

How to watch: Peacock

———

©2023 Chicago Tribune. Visit chicagotribune.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Zillow, the country’s largest real estate portal, began offering “natural language” searches on its mobile app to bring up more precise results. Rather than setting filters across a limited set of criteria, like the number of bedrooms and ZIP Code, consumers can speak or type what they want.

For example, a consumer could search for a three-bedroom house with a brick exterior built in the 1950s or 1960s with a large backyard near a public park in Denver.

“Artificial intelligence will have a tremendous benefit to the real estate industry,” said Jasjeet Thind, senior vice president of AI and Analytics at Zillow, on Wednesday.

Zillow has been deploying machine learning and artificial intelligence since 2006 in its Zestimates, which are automated estimates of a home’s value, Jasjeet said. Initial efforts generated a pricing error range of 14%, but that is now down to 2%.

The use of AI has spread into a host of other applications. The pandemic made 3D showing popular, allowing consumers to do virtual walk-throughs of a home online. Zillow takes it a step beyond, using AI to create floor plans and square footage estimates for each room based on photos.

AI will also allow real estate sites to engage with buyers and sellers of homes before they are ready to talk to a broker, answering their questions and boosting their comfort level, said Rob Barber, CEO of ATTOM, which maintains large data sets on real estate markets.

He also sees it being increasingly used to help consumers see what a given room might look like with new furniture or different appliances.

ATTOM uses artificial intelligence to generate risk estimates for insurers and lenders, which in turn can help generate more customized insurance premiums, Barber said.

The panelists said it is unlikely AI will eliminate the need for human brokers or the commissions they charge, which can run in the 5% to 6% range for a seller.

But they could reduce the friction or sticking points in real estate transactions, which is a good thing, said William Holmes, head of agent partnerships at Opendoor, a provider of instant offers.

AI, while making great strides, is far from foolproof.

“AI is like an idiot savant. It doesn’t know the truth,” said Glenn Phillips, CEO with Lake Homes Realty, on a different panel on Tuesday.

The models remain highly suggestible and will carry forward the biases of the coders. Bad data results in bad answers. And AI remains prone to hallucinations, or fabricated answers, that sound plausible but have no basis in reality.

And even when AI is working as it should, natural language searches still depend heavily on how well queries are written.

“You won’t be replaced by AI,” Phillips said. “You will be replaced by people who are better at using AI than you are.”

Get more real estate and business news by signing up for our weekly newsletter, On the Block.

We do a deep dive into the psychological thriller co-starring Amanda Seyfried as well as one of 2023’s best films of the year, “Past Lives.” And there’s a terrific stand-up-and-cheer feature debut from Eva Longoria.

Here’s our roundup.

“The Crowded Room”: Tom Holland flings himself into any role, from Spider-Man to his latest — as a troubled crime suspect in a gripping Apple TV+ limited series. It’s one of his most demanding roles — requiring a greater level of commitment than what was demanded of him in Apple TV+’s terribly overblown “Cherry.” Thankfully the 10-part “Crowded Room” is worth his considerable talents and versatility. Holland is an actor who makes you want to see his character do well, no matter all the bad stuff happening around him. It is that relatability, and Holland’s fierce commitment to lose himself in his character, that bolsters this engrossing series inspired by Daniel Keys’ non-fiction novel “The Minds of Billy Milligan.”

Holland stars as Danny Sullivan, who’s arrested for an alleged shooting at Rockefeller Center in New York. The one trying to extract the why’s and the what’s from a jailed Danny and earn her tenure in the process is interrogator/psychology professor Rya Goodwin (Amanda Seyfried). Each tension-filled episode features their “sessions” together and leads to flashbacks to Danny’s years spent with his emotionally distant mother (Emmy Rossum of “Shameless”) and his step-father (Will Chase). Showrunner Akiva Goldsman takes full advantage of the 1979 setting and fashions a successful psychological thriller filled with good performances and taut direction. But this series belongs to Holland and he’s shattering to behold. His emotionally staggering performances takes “The Crowded Room” to a whole new level. Details: 3 stars out of 4; three episodes drop June 9 with one following each week on Apple TV+.

“Past Lives”: On paper it looks at first like filmmaker Celine Song simply recycled a stale romance trope — two childhood friends who’ve been separated for decades meet up only to find out that they are the ones who … . But Song’s trick in her heartbreaking feature is that she avoids filling in the dot-dot-dots and creative spaces with what we’ve come to expect. Instead, she gives us three complicated but likable protagonists — New York playwright Nora (Greta Lee), her author husband Arthur (John Magaro) and Nora’s sweet reminder of what life was like in South Korea, Hae Sung (Teo Yoo). Their coming together doesn’t lead to a cliched affection tug-of-war but contemplates complex issues about cultural identity, how the past shapes present relationships and how a partner can never entirely share what their lover’s previous life was like.

For all those heady reasons, time serves as a powerful metaphor in “Past Lives,” and Song — a playwright herself — makes the passage of hours, days and years appropriately fluid, allowing scenes to reveal how much time has elapsed through dialogue. It puts us into a sort-of dreamy fugue state at times, and it pairs well with the Korean concept of in-yun — how interconnections from our past lives affect the here and now, which Song also explores. Gorgeously shot on 35mm, this a beautiful film to behold and is, in a sense, a visual poem. It certainly presents its actors with rich material. Lee has the trickiest part and is asked to convey — in one of the most profound endings you’ll see this or any other year — a wave of emotions with limited dialogue. Magaro and Yoo are in sync with her every step of the way, and each creates a remarkable character who’s sensitive to Grace’s needs yet captivated by her. “Past Lives” treats these very human characters with respect and care, and in turn we care for all of them. “Past Lives” is easily one of the best, if not one of the most profoundly moving, films you’ll see in 2023. Details: 4 stars; in theaters June 9.

“Flamin’ Hot”: It’s sadly a rarity to see Hollywood make a feel-good movie about a Mexican American underdog who relies on his ingenuity and determination to gain respect from friends and family and even land a huge promotion — one he never imagined he could ever achieve. In an energetic and irresistible style, Eva Longoria’s feature debut does a fine job of raising the voice of Richard Montañez (Jesse Garcia), a janitor trying to get noticed at a Frito-Lays factory planet in Rancho Cucamonga, as well as hardworking wife Judy (Annie Gonzalez). The game changer in both of their lives is the fiery notion to spice up one of the company’s biggest snacks, Cheetos. Screenwriters Lewis Colick and Linda Yvette Chávez keep it mostly peppy but they do address such serious matters as the fact that most drug runners make more money than Montañez did. But “Flamin’ Hot” doesn’t dwell on that topic, nor should it. This enjoyable movie is designed to make you laugh, smile and cheer on the underdog. It’s a sweet surprise this summer. Details: 3 stars; available June 9 on Hulu and Disney+.

“Rise”: Happiness, as we all know, can be elusive and fleeting and eviscerated with just one misstep. Such is the fate that befalls up-and-coming French ballerina Elise (Marion Barbeau), who injures herself when she loses her focus upon discovering her dancer boyfriend is cheating on her. Having dedicated her life to dance, the devastating news that she might be done doubles the devastation. Unlike the harsh and deluded ballerina-eat-ballerina world depicted in “Black Swan,” director Cédric Klapisch’s dance world is more enlightened and supportive. Choreographed to perfection and filled with rich and encouraging exchanges with interesting characters who talk about following their passions or observing them from the sidelines, “Rise” is an exquisite French drama that celebrates the tenacity within us all and our ability to adapt and rise above what we were before. It’s a lovely film, filled often with lovely dancers who adjust their dreams accordingly. Details: 3½ stars; in select theaters June 9.

“Daliland”: The psychedelic, anything-goes New York art scene comes to colorful life in Mary Harron’s dishy romp in which handsome gallery assistant James Linton (Christopher Birney) crosses paths with iconic surrealist Salvador Dali (Ben Kingsley, chewing into the part) and the painter’s tempestuous wife Gala Dali (Barbara Sukowa). James gets entangled into that couple’s stormy relationship. But can he earn a permanent spot with this crowd or is he just a plaything? Harron (“American Psycho,” “I Shot Andy Warhol”) ponders that question a bit in this sinfully fun feature. It’s not one of her best works, but it is an entertaining one. Details: 3 stars; opens June 9 in select theaters.

“Unidentified Objects”: Juan Felipe Zuleta’s weird and marvelous first feature is a “road” picture that finds the grouchy, pretentious Peter (Matthew August Jeffers, in a performance of bite and anger) agreeing to drive eccentric sex worker Winona (Sarah Hay) to the site where she claims she had a close encounter with aliens. What could have been a dumb road trip transforms into a meaningful and occasionally humorous story about two entities — a man who has dwarfism and a woman with a wretched past — coming together in a world that doesn’t necessarily care to nurture or even accept them. Leland Frankel’s screenplay, the two lead performances and the compassionate direction from first-timer Zuleta make it a celestial wonder worth discovering. Details: 3½ stars; screens 7:30 p.m. June 8 at Alamo Drafthouse in San Francisco, with producer Masha Leonov on hand, also  available on Vudu.

Contact Randy Myers at soitsrandy@gmail.com.

According to Ryan Lee, the Denver-based founder and CEO of Livvy, seltzers made from a grape base are popular among manufacturers because they add a natural sweetness to the beverages and don’t necessitate the use of artificial flavorings. Livvy, which debuted in July 2022, offers three flavors all made with ginger root, prickly pear root, dandelion root and licorice root extract, plus real fruit juice depending on the flavor.

Last summer, Neilsen reported that hard seltzers accounted for 43% of the dollars spent in the ready-to-drink beverage space. Even though that figure was down about 10% compared to 2021, Lee said the category is still ripe with opportunity.

“Canned wines are still a very low percent of the market,” he said. Many winemakers are watching the explosion in popularity of RTD beverages and seeing an opportunity to attract a younger customer base and stay on trend, he added.

That’s especially true as drinkers increasingly reach for “better for you” beverages. Nielsen reported in May that health and wellness will be among the top decision drivers when it comes to the alcoholic products consumers choose to buy this summer. Drinkers will also be leaning toward more high-end beverages, primarily those made with tequila, and those endorsed by celebrities.

“We’re seeing a trend across the entire U.S. that younger consumers are really focused on more mindful drinking,” said Kevin Webber, CEO of Carboy Winery, which debuted a line of seltzers called Cold Vines in 2021. “We’re seeing people in our tasting rooms start with a glass of wine and then opting for a seltzer because of the lower alcohol.”

At 4% and 5% alcohol-by-volume, respectively, both Livvy and Cold Vines include less than half as much alcohol as a standard glass of wine. Similarly, Piquette made by Palisade’s Sauvage Spectrum winery clocks 6.5% ABV, and Jetway, a line of wine seltzers produced by Western Slope winemaker Ben Parsons, comes in at 5% ABV. The latter also boasts about 100 calories and just five carbs.

Parsons, who created Jetway with The Strokes guitarist Albert Hammond Jr., said his goal is to elevate the seltzer category.

“Back (in 2020) White Claw and Truly were dominating, but those products are really just cane sugar thrown in a fermentation vessel to create alcohol and then blended with artificial colors, flavors and ingredients,” said Parsons, who is also proprietor of The Ordinary Fellow winery in Palisade. “The reason we picked wine is obviously my background is in wine, but there’s still a health halo associated with wine.”

The fact these products are canned and carbonated makes them even more crushable during the summer.

“It’s a no-brainer. In summer months, people want to drink something crisper, lighter and more refreshing,” Webber said.

Here’s the skinny on four wine seltzers with local ties to try this summer.

Cold Vines Wine Seltzer

For several years, Carboy Winery has been on a mission to become Colorado’s premiere sparkling wine purveyor and in doing so the company created something of a natural byproduct.

To make sparkling wine, Webber and his team harvest grapes early in the season when they are high in acidity. Those grapes also make an optimal base for seltzer because they are uniquely suited to be watered down and have fruit concentrates added back to them, he said.

Cold Vines comes in four flavors – lemon, black cherry, peach, and watermelon – each clocking 5% ABV. Right now, they’re made exclusively with Colorado grapes though that could change as distribution expands in the future, Webber said.

The seltzers utilize whichever grapes the winery is harvesting to make sparkling wines according to its production schedule, so the exact varietals change throughout the year.

Cold Vines is for sale in four-packs of cans at Carboy’s taprooms in Denver (400 E. 7th Ave.), Littleton (6885 S. Santa Fe Dr.) and Palisade (3572 G Rd.), as well as at Molly’s Spirits. coldvinesseltzer.com

Jetway

Jetway wine seltzers were inspired by The Strokes guitarist Albert Hammond Jr.’s experience globetrotting and craving a bubbly beverage akin to an Aperol spritz, said Parsons, who serves as the company’s chief operating officer.

Hammond and Parsons, who were linked up through friends of friends, developed two unique flavors starting with grapes from a winery in Washington. The rose wine seltzer uses cabernet and syrah grapes plus ginger, yerba mate, peach and orange peel. The white wine seltzer leverages sauvignon blanc grapes alongside ginger, yerba mate, and elderflower. Both are 5% ABV.

The company is working on new recipes, Parsons said, and aspires to open brick-and-mortar Jetway lounges in the future.

Jetway’s rollout began in 2021 in Hammond’s region of residence in Southern California, where Jetway is also available on draft at select bars and restaurants. The beverages made their Colorado debut in 2022 at retail stores along the Front Range. They are also available for purchase online. drinkjetway.com

Livvy

Since launching Livvy in 2022, Lee has been promoting it primarily through word of mouth and guerilla marketing, which is why Denverites may have seen him at city parks offering free samples to locals ages 21 and up.

The 4% ABV seltzer comes is available in three flavors – ginger-peach, prickly pear lemonade and pineapple-hibiscus – and because each recipe leverages extracts like ginger root and licorice root, Lee says they boast antioxidant properties, among other benefits.

That last point is important to Lee, who comes to the seltzer industry after a previous venture developing a supplement for folks like himself who experience alcohol flush reaction.

“I thought it would be great to take some of our knowledge of natural ingredients and put them in into a clean, better-for-you seltzer,” Lee said.

Livvy is available exclusively online in 12-count variety packs that include all three flavors, though Lee hopes to enter retail locations in Colorado soon. drinklivvy.com

Piquette

According to Patric Matysiewski, co-founder and winemaker at Sauvage Spectrum in Palisade, the idea for Piquette came not from trying to compete with seltzer, but from trying to revive an ancient production method also called “piquette.”

Historically, peasants who worked in vineyards were paid in pressed grape skins teeming with residual sugar, which they could take home, soak in water and ferment again naturally, Matysiewski said. He thought he could adopt the technique to recycle grape skins he uses to make white wines and create a new offering.

“Basically, we’re taking rubbish and turning it into a sustainable product. That’s why I really like it,” said Matysiewski, who bills Piquette as a wine spritzer more than a seltzer. (And wouldn’t you know, Nielsen said companies’ commitments to sustainability will play into purchasing decisions this summer.)

Piquette is made from a rotating mix of grape varietals depending on Sauavge Spectrum’s production schedule, but it typically boasts a pink hue, light body and 6.5% ABV.

Piquette is for sale at Sauvage Spectrum’s taprooms in Palisade (676 38 1/4 Rd.) and Ouray (480 Main St.), as well as farmers markets throughout Colorado this summer, including at Union Station in Denver, in the Highlands in Denver and in Vail. sauvagespectrum.com

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Fans of the famous Mattel doll who attend the recently expanded World of Barbie immersive experience, which will now stay at the Santa Monica Place mall through Sept. 4, can hop inside her van, sit behind the wheel, honk the horn and pretend they’re cruising down Pacific Coast Highway thanks to a famous local car shop.

“We got an actual Mattel Barbie camper, we 3D scanned it and then we essentially exploded it into this life-size Barbie camper,” said Lorenzo Strong, vice president of sales and brand partnerships for West Coast Customs, which is famous for customizing cars for musicians, actors and athletes.

“This is super wild and off the wall for us because we’re used to building real, actually functional campers and cars and trucks and all that,” he added.

The World of Barbie interactive attraction opened on April 14 inside a 20,000 square-foot, two-story space that allows guests into the iconic doll’s perfect pink life.

It’s made up of life-size recreations of the interior of her beach house, complete with a view of the ocean. There’s also a pool filled with plastic balls with a slide where kids — and even adults — can jump in and Barbie boxes that people can get into and have their picture taken as various versions of the iconic toy.

There’s a Barbie Space Center, where guests can pretend they’re about to travel into outer space and a theater playing animated Barbie films, plus other rooms filled with Barbie memorabilia.

But one of the biggest hits with fans has been the camper van, which is about the size of a 12-seat Mercedes Sprinter van.

“I think it’s so neat to get to live something you grew up playing with and now you get to walk through it with your kid. I think the detail in this van is amazing, it looks exactly like the toy,” said Allison Firey, who was visiting the World of Barbie from Santa Barbara with her 10-year-old daughter, Grace.

The two had just sat in the cab of the van, with Grace taking the passenger seat because she said she was too young to drive.

“It was cool,” Grace said.

The entire process of creating the van took about a year. It’s made up of foam, fiberglass, wood and there are a few real car components in the van like custom wheels and tires that could go on a car. It also has a working horn and headlights.

“There are lots of interactive features that really make the experience even that much more exciting,” Strong said.

Behind the cab, which is decked out with LED lights and custom purple passenger and driver chairs, there is a hammock that people can relax in.

At the back of the van is Barbie’s closet and a table and chairs under a TV screen playing animated Barbie shows. On the table is the actual toy van that West Coast Customs scanned for the build.

“Everything that’s in that toy van is on here. If you open it up you’ll see everything you see here,”  Strong said, referring to the custom built van.

And because you can’t go camping without bringing some grub, on the other side of the van is Barbie’s kitchen, which includes a fridge, stove and a sink.

World of Barbie is a traveling exhibit that launched in Canada before coming to Santa Monica, and because the van doesn’t actually have an engine, Strong said the entire thing has to be disassembled and reassembled when it hits the road again.

“We couldn’t be more excited to build this project. We’re all kids at heart so it makes it that much more rewarding when you see kids actually enjoy it like this,” he said.

World of Barbie

When: Now through Sept. 4

Where: Santa Monica Place, 395 Santa Monica Place, Santa Monica, CA

Cost: $34 for adults and $26 for children at theworldofbarbie.com.

I just harvested all of ours a few days ago, and if you want to have the best yield of succulent garlic bulbs in a few weeks, go ahead and cut off the scapes from your garlic plants.

Even if you don’t choose to eat the scapes or give them away, go ahead and cut them off because if the scape blossoms into the flower it’ll rob the underground bulb of some of its most delightful properties. I choose to consume the scapes because they’re delicious and loaded with healthful things like plant protein, vitamin C and calcium.

According to some research, scapes, like the plant they come from, garlic, can help to control high blood pressure and high cholesterol, while also assisting in preventing heart disease. Reduction in bodily inflammation and immune system support also weigh in heavily as consumption benefits.

If you’re concerned, in folklore scapes, like garlic, will prevent vampires from dining on you. Even better, some cultures believe eating scapes and garlic bulbs will prevent you from being possessed. Apparently even demons have a threshold for interactions with malodorous, odiferous malfeasance.

Keeping yourself safe from vampires and demons by eating garlic scapes can utilize an assortment of recipes and preparations. You can blanche scapes, roast scapes, boil scapes, grill scapes, serve then on salads, mix them into soups and stews, candy them, pickle them, make pesto with them or do what I’ve just done with the assistance of my wife: make garlic scape butter.

I’m going to sound braggadocios right now, but honestly, the garlic scape butter we just made from our homegrown scapes is a delightful treat for the taste buds. It’s easy to make garlic scape butter the way we did it. And best of all, the butter can be preserved by freezing it in small 4- or 8-ounce canning jars.

I went to market and got 2 pounds of rolled farm-fresh butter. You can use any kind of butter, but farm-fresh is truly some of the best. Allow the butter to sit out overnight in a covered container. In our case, we also had to put the butter behind a closed pantry door or the cat would have gobbled it all up and then we’d have had a sick cat. Cut the fresh scapes off the stalk in the morning.

It’s always better to harvest first thing in the morning because the scapes will have the most amount of moisture content at that time. Moisture in scapes and other vegetables is a good thing.

Take the harvested or bought scapes and chop them up as you would parsley. Next, take your butter, and in a blender or bowl, gently pulse or stir your scapes into the softened butter until the plant material is evenly spread throughout the butter. The process of pulsing in a blender also offers the added benefit of whipping the butter, making it light and full of air. The yellow butter will blend with the scapes creating a very light green end product that tastes rich, mellow and not unlike chives. Put aside a portion to use now and freeze the rest if you please.

My wife and I both licked the bowl and utensils like we had made some sort of cake batter. It’s delicious.

Seemingly defiant to all advice by cardiac specialists, we used salted butter to make our gourmet treat. We feel moderation is the key, and let’s face it, we know where the butter came from. It came from a cow. We like and believe in cows. Who knows where those fake butter products come from and what’s really in them?

Spread it on toasted bread, place a dab on a grilled steak, use on potatoes of any kind, melt for dunking and drenching seafood; it’s the best. If you’d like to watch a YouTube video showing how we made our garlic scape butter, just go to this link, youtu.be/KfU9-RSb7mA.

FYI: The life cycle of garlic in most people’s gardens is as follows: Plant last year’s saved garlic bulbs in fall at least a month or so before the first hard freeze. I plant ours in October. You’ll begin to see growth poke above ground by early March in most cases. Keep the garlic crop well-watered throughout spring.

In June and July, depending on the variety, you’ll see the scapes growing because the plant is trying to flower. You don’t want to grow flowers, though. You want to grow succulent garlic bulbs. So you cut off the flower pod, the scape, and then use it as a food product.

Sometime in early summer, not long after removing the scapes, you’ll see the leaves of the plants begin to decline and turn yellow. This is very similar to the life cycle of other bulbed plants like daffodils and tulips. Rule of thumb is that when the leaves are about three-quarters yellowed, wait for the driest, non-rainy weather time and harvest your bulbs by carefully digging around them and gently uprooting them to lift them out.

Store them in a cool, dry place to cure them. Don’t be afraid to use some for cooking anytime you like. If you want to perpetuate your crop, just put some bulbs aside to take apart and replant in fall. Growing and harvesting garlic is easy, fun, highly nutritious and satisfying because, in essence, you get two annual crop yields, the scapes and the bulbs.

The process also puts you in touch with nature’s clock and progression and I find that to be very calming and meaningful.

Dave Kline is an award-winning writer, photographer, show host and producer, singer-songwriter, travel guide and community advocate. Reach him at davesmountainfolklore@gmail.com.

And summer travel is only just getting started. In 2019, the Friday before Memorial Day was the third-busiest day at U.S. airports for the entire year, losing only to the Sunday after Thanksgiving and the Sunday after July Fourth. This may indicate that airports could be even busier around Independence Day than Memorial Day weekend.

Making Fourth of July travel predictions is tricky this year because the holiday falls midweek, on a Tuesday. Some folks may take Monday off to enjoy a long weekend, while others may save their vacation time for a different holiday.

With that in mind, here’s some guidance around booking July Fourth weekend air travel and how you might be able to avoid the crowds (and potentially save money on airfare).

The best and worst days to fly July Fourth weekend

TSA collects data daily to capture the number of passengers screened at its U.S. checkpoints. NerdWallet analyzed the past four years of this data for the seven days before and after July Fourth.

In each of the past four years, the Friday before July Fourth was the busiest travel day ahead of the Fourth of July weekend. If that trend continues this year, travelers should expect U.S. airports to be especially full on Friday, June 30.

Are airports busy on July Fourth? The data shows the holiday is the least busy day to fly, with airport crowds averaging just 81% of what they are relative to the busiest travel day.

Based on an average of the past four years, here are the worst days to travel around July Fourth weekend, ranked from most to least crowded.

Pre-holiday:

1. Friday before.
2. Thursday before.
3. Monday before.

Post-holiday:

1. Sunday after.
2. Monday after.
3. Thursday after.

Instead, consider these options. Here’s what the data showed as the best days to travel over July Fourth, ranked from least to most crowded:

Pre-holiday:

1. Saturday before.
2. Tuesday before.
3. Sunday before.

Post-holiday:

1. Saturday after.
2. Friday after.
3. Wednesday after.

The smarter, cheaper Fourth of July travel itinerary

Based on recent historical trends, most people will kick off their Fourth of July weekend as early as possible, jetting off on Friday, June 30 — or even ducking out of the workweek early by departing on Thursday, June 29. Most travelers will likely maximize their weekends, waiting until Sunday, July 9, to fly home.

But following typical July Fourth holiday travel patterns could mean costs in terms of airfare and time spent waiting in line at the airport. Deviate from that schedule to find lighter crowds and perhaps better July Fourth flight deals, too.

Try these travel days instead:

Embrace Saturday travel: Rather than rush out from work on Friday afternoon to jump on a flight, relax at home that evening and depart Saturday morning instead. Simply shifting your trip by one day could likely result in going from one of the busiest to lightest travel days of the July Fourth travel period.

The same goes for traveling back home. While it can be tempting to extend your trip as long as possible before work starts on Monday, skip the Sunday flight and fly home on Saturday instead. Bonus: You’ll give yourself a day at home to rest and recover before you hit the next workweek (how responsible of you).

Fly on July Fourth: If you don’t mind traveling on the holiday, you’re looking at the single emptiest air travel day of the period.

Do one better by flying out early on the holiday. Travel booking app Hopper’s spring 2023 Flight Disruption Outlook found that flights that depart from 5 a.m. to 8 a.m. are half as likely to be delayed versus flights with scheduled departure times after 9 a.m.

Plus, a morning flight improves your odds of catching the fireworks at your final destination.

Fly on Wednesday, July 5: Will July 5 be a busy travel day in 2023? Likely no. This year, July 5 falls on a Wednesday, one of the cheapest days to fly year-round. Plus, according to TSA’s data, July 5 has been a consistently light travel day. In 2019, July 5 was the lightest travel day for the week after the holiday (July 5 fell on a Friday that year).

Moreover, for U.S. domestic economy tickets in 2022, Wednesdays were about 22% lower than peak prices on Sundays, according to a NerdWallet analysis of Hopper data.

July Fourth travelers in 2023 can feel confident that a July 5 flight itinerary will afford them cheaper airfare plus less congested airport queues.

More From NerdWallet

The word apricot comes from Latin and Arabic, apricot meaning “early-ripe,” as in an early-ripened peach. Interestingly, apricot has the same root as the word precocious, which we used to describe children who seem to be wise beyond their years.

The Chinese are said to have been the first to cultivate apricots more than 4,000 years ago, although Alexander the Great gets the credit for introducing them to Europe and beyond. Today Iran and Turkey are the major producers of apricots; in the United States, they are mostly grown in California, but because they are highly perishable most of the harvest is dried and canned for year-round consumption.

The apricot seed has a kernel inside that has a bitter almond taste and is considered poisonous because it contains the chemical hydrogen cyanide, (although apparently you would have to eat an enormous amount of them to poison yourself). For this reason it is recommended that you roast the kernels before using them in confections and liqueurs.

Apricots are high in beta carotene, calcium, iron and vitamin A, and are touted as a beneficial food for eye health.

The following recipe, from David Lebovitz’s cookbook “Ready for Dessert,” is a favorite. It uses the classic combination of apricots and almonds found in many well-known breakfast pastries and desserts.

I posted a recipe for an apricot and cherry tart a few years ago, and today’s recipe has some similar ingredients. Unlike the previous one, though, it has almond slices in the crust and the process for making the dough is different. This crust’s ingredients are blended in the food processor. Then, using your fingers you push the dough into the sides and corners of the tart pan.

I made the crust the day before and left it in the refrigerator overnight. The next morning, I prebaked the crust. While it was cooling, I made the filling and the topping.

It’s a perfect way to welcome summer’s stone-fruit season.

Claudia Alexander has been happily cooking for family and friends for more than three decades. The Marin resident has a weekly food blog, sweetbynurture.com. Contact her at sweetbynurture@gmail.com.

RECIPE

Apricot Marzipan Tart

Serves 8

INGREDIENTS

Crust:

1 cup all-purpose flour

½ cup sliced almonds, almond meal, or almond flour

¼ cup of granulated sugar

8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter cold

Pinch of salt

Filling:

10-12 apricots (approximately 1 lb.) cut into slices

1 tablespoon cornstarch

¼ cup granulated sugar

Topping:

4 ounces marzipan, almond paste

¼ cup sliced almonds

½ cup light brown sugar

1/3 cup flour

4 tablespoons butter cold

DIRECTIONS

To make the crust, put the flour, almonds, sugar, and salt in the bowl of your food processor and pulse a couple times. Now chop the butter into big chunks and toss it with the flour mixture, pulsing 15 times or so until you see the mixture start to come together. Dump the entire bowl into your tart pan and using your fingers push it into the sides until you get an even layer. Then chill the shell for 1 hour at least.

While the crust is chilling make the topping. Toss all the ingredients except the butter into the food processor to mix. Pinch the butter and add unequal pieces to the mixture. Set aside.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Pierce the crust with a fork to keep it from bubbling. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until golden. Turn the oven down to 375 degrees and let the crust cool.

To make the filling, toss the sliced apricots with the cornstarch and sugar. When the crust is cool to the touch add the apricot filling and top with the marzipan evenly across the top of the tart. Bake for 25-30 minutes until golden.

Note: The crust needs to chill in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour (and up to overnight) so plan accordingly. I used a 9-inch tart pan with a removable base for this recipe.

“What ya’ll got in those big bags?” she asked in her thick Southern accent.

Surfboards, of course.

Texas isn’t known as a surfing hotspot, though there are a few coastal towns that can get fun, yet fickle, waves. But my husband Jon and I weren’t headed to the beach — instead, we were taking a surf safari inland to Waco, a small town hours away from the ocean.

For many people, Waco is known for Magnolia Farms, a quaint-and-cute tourist destination for home-renovation enthusiasts enthralled with Chip and Joanna Gaines, who helped popularize rustic-yet-chic designs for their reality show “Fixer Upper.”

The other thing the town is known for: the Waco siege, a massacre 30 years ago following a 51-day standoff between law enforcement and a cult.

But now, Waco can add “surfing destination” to its identity.

Waco Surf, formally known as BSR Surf Ranch, has been creating a buzz among surfers as a must-go hotspot, where wave after wave pump out from a magical machine.

Even die-hard surfers from Southern California have been making the pilgrimage, swearing by its ability to mimic an ocean wave with one added perk — reliability.

I’ve been obsessed with wave pools for years, curious about how they work, how they feel to ride and interested in how technology might change surf culture as we know it, with more popping up around the world — and several planned for the desert region of Southern California — allowing people far away from the ocean the chance to feel the thrill of the ride.

My husband Jon had also been eyeing Waco for a surf trip, marveling at clips showing the punchy, at times barreling, surf break. His 40th birthday was a perfect opportunity to sneak away from the kids for a quick 48-hour trip from Orange County.

After a morning stop by Magnolia Farms — because that’s something you just have to see when in town — we soaked in the natural landscape surrounding Waco Surf, tucked away from town next to farmland where the famous Texas longhorns munched on grass.

The marveled look on our faces must have been a giveaway that we were newbies as we checked in for our “heats,” hourlong surf sessions with a group of about a dozen other surfers.

A man named Pops looked out the window with us to explain how it works, pointing to a wall where one group of surfers lined up waiting for waves while the other surfers patiently waited their turn for the next set to roll in.

It seemed so … civilized. So much different from the ocean, where surfers jockey for waves in paddle battles or drop in on each other in crowded lineups.

“They are taking off at an angle, don’t take off straight,” he warned.

The first wave of the set is the “magic wave,” the one that suddenly shows up out of nowhere. The next waves come just seconds later, so those surfers must be ready to paddle as soon as that first wave passes.

We walked down to the beach and suited up for our “intermediate” session, a punchy wave that first breaks right for half an hour, then peels left. We paired up in four groups of three, all politely asking one another who wanted to go first.

A surf coach was out in the water with us, sort of like a referee who keeps order to the line and gives tips when surfers miss their wave — which apparently, I needed.

The wave wasn’t huge, but the way it broke was tricky. Timing had to be just right and paddling into the wave is odd — opposite than you would while catching an ocean wave, toward where it was breaking, rather than away on the shoulder.

As I was sitting in the second spot, the wave popped up within seconds of the rider in front of me taking his wave. The first wave I paddled for slipped under me as I got hung up on top. The second wave crashed over me, my timing still off.

“Almost had it,” the guide assured me.

Jon, a much more experienced surfer than I, had no trouble figuring out how it worked, coming back from each wave with a huge smile of satisfaction across his face as he beamed about how fun the wave was to ride.

It was on my fourth attempt that it clicked and I popped up just as the wave pushed my board and body forward. As I rode across the wave, it felt familiar yet challenging, floating on the watery surface and trying to keep my board from slipping out from under my feet.

At the end of the wave, my arms shot up to the air with glee.

Wow, that was fun. I want more.

Lucky for me, there was much more to be had. The left-peeling waves, strangely enough since I’m regular footed, seemed easier to ride. Just as I felt like I was getting my groove, my hourlong season was over.

Thankfully, we both had more sessions on the books. We watched the next group in the beginner session getting tips on pop-ups and paddle technique, riding soft top boards as the mellow, Waikiki-like wave rolled in.

It was so gentle I wondered if our two young children might join us next time, eying the lazy river that meandered through the property and four massive slides that could chuck them into the air.

Jon’s session was up next, this time an “advanced” setting. The wave was slightly bigger and faster, just enough punch to make it a challenge. He came out of the water exhausted, arms and legs tired after riding wave after wave.

My second session was the same as the first, a few misses and some fun rides, but enough to feel satisfied as we wrapped up our day in the hot tub with the other surfers.

While the waves were the draw, one of the best parts of the trip was the stoke among all the others who had traveled from near and far to ride this wild, wacky wave.

There was Bob, a 64-year-old originally from the South Bay who surfed for his college team in Santa Barbara as a youngster. He moved to Austin some 20 years ago and forgot about surfing, until the wave pool popped up to let him surf once again.

Then, there were the two college soccer players, one from Brazil and the other Australia, who grew up surfing but never thought, living in Austin, they’d have access to waves.

The professional motorcycle racer and avid wakeboarder in town for a convention figured he’d give surfing a shot, quickly realizing it was harder than he thought.

Then, there were the mix of surfers, surprisingly, from wave-rich Southern California. Why, if you can surf for free at the beach, would you travel to Waco and pay for waves? I asked.

The answer was always the same — you’re guaranteed waves.

Sky Stone, of Newport Beach, has been out of the water for a year due to a shoulder injury. He and a few friends opted for private sessions so they could have the pool to themselves.

“I think this is the best place to come to get your reps in and shake the rust off,” he said.

For a surf trip you might drop big bucks on, there’s always a chance you may get skunked, he noted.

“It’s only going to be good waves,” he said of Waco’s man-made surf.

Surfer Adam Price, 45, lives about a mile from the beach in Santa Cruz and decided to take friends’ advice to take a surf trip to Waco.

“I love it,” Price said after his first session. “I’m still trying to wrap my head around it.”

The takeoff was tricky, he also found. Then, there was the odd feeling of surfing toward a wall, the wave pushing in a way that you never actually collide with it.

Price’s favorite part is the wave count, he said, but also how civilized and orderly the lineup was.

“I’m going to come back with buddies, or even my family,” he said, noting he has a 10- and 13-year-old who would like to surf in an environment that doesn’t share water with sharks.

The Waco wave was originally the “Barefoot Ski Ranch,” before it transformed into BSR wave pool in 2017. It was during the pandemic, when international surf travel was limited, that surfers flocked to the area and word spread about how fun the wave was to ride.

New owners took over in 2021 and rebranded it Waco Surf this year, putting in a lot of new upgrades, like streamlining the check-in process and revamping the on-site 13-room hotel. I was glad we splurged for the pool-view room, allowing us to watch surfers through the evening after our sessions while we sipped on beers.

The Lazy River is one of the longest in the world, taking 45 minutes just to do one lap, and then there’s the Wedge water slide that launches people people into the air and into the pool.

To our disappointment, both were closed during our off-season visit but will be up and running by summer.

There’s also a cable park where people can take the “Wake Academy” wakeboarding sessions, three food areas and five bars on site.

Amy Hunt, director of sales and marketing, said there are two types of clientele who come to Waco Surf. There are the surfers who fly in almost daily from California, Hawaii and Florida and even some from as far as Australia and Brazil.

Then, there are also the local day-use guests who are within a three-hour drive.

They are currently working on a “know before you go” video to help guests figure out what to pack. One of the things I would have liked to know before our trip was the amount of decent boards they have on hand. It would have been great to not deal with our huge surfboard bags or get hit with the $150 fee by Southwest Airlines.

Upon our return home, we couldn’t help but buzz about how fun the Waco waves were, watching videos we took and dreaming about taking the kids or getting a group of friends together for a future trip.

The next day, I packed up my longboard and headed for San Onofre, my favorite surf spot at home. The crowds, as always, were thick. The swell was small and the water was brown and chilly.

The ocean and the wave pool were much different surfing experiences, but with one thing in common — the thrill of the ride to make me smile.

More info: 

Cost to surf: Surf sessions range from beginner ($89 including soft-top board) to advanced surf session ($109). Pro sessions that last 90 minutes are about $300.

Where to stay: Hotel rooms range from $250 for wave-view hotel rooms to $950 for larger suites. Cabins range from $229 to $550 a night.

Website: wacosurf.com