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Earlier this week, a Kennedy Center tour guide spoke to The New York Times about how she still kept showing up every Monday to conduct tours, but knew one day she might just arrive to locked doors. It only took until Thursday for that to come true, when the director of the volunteer program for the Kennedy Center said it was putting a “temporary pause” on tours of the center that Trump is…

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A cartoon by Drew Sheneman. Related | Trump shills for AI while lying about surging energy prices…

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Elon Musk is going to throw some of his millions of dollars into the midterms and back Senator Susan Collins.

The New York Times reports that Musk plans to spend $100 million to $120 million to help Collins, as well as other Republican candidates in close Senate races. Collins, who recently got a new Democratic challenger in former state Senator Troy Jackson, has an uphill battle to keep her seat in the blue state of Maine.

In addition to Maine, Musk’s super PAC, America PAC, plans to spend money in Alaska, Iowa, Ohio, and Michigan, all states with Senate contests where Democrats are polling well. The super PAC is also considering investing in the Senate races in Georgia, North Carolina, and Texas, and is already backing House Republican candidates in California, Wisconsin, and Washington.

America PAC is reportedly coordinating with major conservative organizations outside of the Republican Party, including the Sentinel Action Fund and the Koch brothers’ Americans for Prosperity. Musk’s organization plans to utilize its funds to knock on voters’ doors before November.

While Musk’s efforts successfully got President Trump elected in 2024, his political work since then has backfired. His money and public appearances in Wisconsin’s Supreme Court election last year ended up costing conservatives the race, and possibly even broke the law. After initially swearing off politics, he’s now back with a vengeance to back his old friend Trump.

But with more than a year of bad press from his Department of Government Efficiency’s decimation of the federal government, Musk’s name is mud with voters. Democrats will be only too happy to point out when he backs their opponents, and he’s going to have to resist his desire to make public appearances unless he wants a repeat of Wisconsin.

Three people have been arrested in connection with a July 13 shooting in Santa Cruz that investigators believe may be gang-related.

The Santa Cruz Police Department announced Friday that detectives with its Investigations Bureau served search warrants in Santa Cruz and Watsonville as part of the investigation into the shooting, which occurred in the 500 block of Errett Circle.

Arrested were:

• Jose Ernesto Puga Banuelos, who was booked on suspicion of attempted murder, assault with a firearm, discharging a firearm at an occupied vehicle and conspiracy to commit a crime.

• Guadalupe Manuel Figueroa Escoto, who was booked on suspicion of attempted murder, assault with a firearm and discharging a firearm at an occupied vehicle.

• Anthony Jose Sanchez-Escobar, who was arrested on suspicion of carrying a loaded firearm in public.

According to police, officers responded to the 500 block of Errett Circle at about 8:07pm on July 13 after receiving reports of gunfire.

When officers arrived, they searched the area, secured the scene and collected evidence. No injuries were reported.

Investigators believe the shooting may have been gang-related and said the investigation remains active and ongoing.

Anyone with information about the shooting is asked to contact the Santa Cruz Police Department. Anonymous tips can be submitted through the department’s tip line at 831.420.5995.

Ohio Senator Bernie Moreno isn’t willing to take a stand on the political future of the guy who allegedly held a gun to his daughter’s head.

NOTUS asked Moreno Friday whether Republicans should move to replace Representative Max Miller on Ohio’s ballot, after gruesome allegations surfaced that he had physically abused his ex-wife, Emily Moreno.

“I don’t know,” the senator told NOTUS.

It’s not clear what about this situation has Moreno so mystified. Moreno’s own daughter accused Miller of throwing hot water on her body, holding a gun to her head, and breaking their two-year-old daughter’s collarbone. Earlier this week, Emily Moreno filed for a new restraining order against Miller, alleging that he’d physically grabbed one of her attorneys and used a profane slur.

If that doesn’t elicit the strongest condemnation, what does the Ohio senator care about?

Moreno’s not alone in his total apathy. Other Republicans—including the entire Ohio Republican delegation—have remained disturbingly silent on the allegations.

Reagan McCarthy, a spokesperson for Moreno, hit back at questions about Moreno’s continued support for his former son-in-law. “While we won’t dignify this baseless attacks by Democrats and their media allies, Senator Moreno will not speak on active litigation involving his family,” McCarthy told NOTUS in a statement.

⚡ Quick Take

• It seems another DC Studios project, Booster Gold, isn’t happening in its current iteration, as David Jenkins confirms his take isn’t going forward.

Sadly, another DC Studios project that was announced in James Gunn’s initial rollout of titles seems to be canceled. At least in its current form. According to Variety, writer David Jenkins, creator of Our Flag Means Death, posted on Threads that his version of Booster Gold won’t go forward. In fact, he reshared Mahershala Ali’s words about his version of Blade not going forward for Marvel Studios. In that post, he said, “For whatever reason, that project is not for me. If they wanted to do it, we would’ve done it. So I have to move on, and I have moved on.” Sounds like Jenkins feels the exact same way.

DC Studios and HBO’s “Booster Gold” TV series won’t be moving forward:

“My ‘Booster Gold’ won’t be moving forward,” writer David Jenkins announced on Threads Friday, reposting a quote from Mahershala Ali saying he’s moving on from Marvel’s “Blade” movie. “Can’t improve on… pic.twitter.com/m4oP3Q3jWJ

— Variety (@Variety) July 31, 2026

This news follows Gunn announcing recently that The Authority, a movie announced in 2023, was also not happening. Swamp Thing ended up on the back burner as well. James Gunn had not posted or mentioned Booster Gold in some time. The last time he said anything about it on social media, he mentioned that the project was still in development. It may be that after the box office failure of Supergirl, DC Studios is focusing on its “Big Guns,” and not second-tier heroes. Which is kind of a shame.

DC Comics

The concept of Booster Gold is perfect for a TV series. In the comics, creator Dan Jurgens created him as a disgraced athlete from the 25th century, who now worked at a museum as a janitor. He stole a time machine from the museum, and using everyday future technology from his time, became a superhero in the present, and also filthy rich. He’d eventually join the Justice League International, which only made Booster even more popular. Hopefully, DC Studios figures out a way to make a Booster Gold series work. Simply put, it’s too great a concept to never see the light of day as a series.

The post DC’s BOOSTER GOLD Series Not Moving Forward appeared first on Nerdist.

A tool that allowed anyone to generate fake AI-generated imagery and superimpose it over real Google Earth maps quickly spurred backlash.

The new funding brings Index's total available investing capital to $3.5 billion.

A city’s primary responsibility is ensuring the safety of its people. 

I am proud to share that our City Council recently adopted a budget that makes a major investment in our frontline defense. We have officially approved the purchase of a brand-new, state-of-the-art fire engine for our fire department. 

Last year alone, the Watsonville Fire Department responded to more than 5,550 calls for service, highlighting the critical role our firefighters and paramedics play in protecting our community every day. Securing this vehicle requires true strategic foresight and immense behind-the-scenes work. Due to nationwide supply chain demands, it takes approximately two years to custom-build a modern fire apparatus. However, the clock doesn’t just start at the factory. Our fire department leadership spends months in the pre-construction phase, carefully researching specifications, forming selection committees, engineering the blueprint to fit our city’s unique streets, and holding meticulous pre-construction conferences with the manufacturer. By investing the time and effort today, we guarantee a flawless final product tailored specifically to our community’s needs. 

It is easy to look at a polished fire engine in a parade and assume it is in perfect condition. In reality, these vehicles endure incredible abuse. They idle for hours at accident scenes, navigate rough roads at high speeds, and push mechanical components to their absolute limits during heavy pumping operations. While our department maintains them meticulously, the hidden wear and tear of emergency response eventually requires us to replace aging equipment. 

Modern fire engines are much more than trucks; they are mobile, lifesaving command centers. As an Advanced Life Support (ALS) department, our engines are staffed by highly trained paramedics. This means our apparatus literally brings a mobile emergency room directly to your doorstep, equipped with the cardiac monitors, medications, and advanced trauma gear needed to save lives in those first critical minutes. 

By proactively upgrading our fleet, we ensure that when you call for help, our firefighters and paramedics can respond rapidly with the most reliable equipment available. Our local crews put their lives on the line for us every day. Providing them with the tools they need to do their jobs safely is a direct investment in the future of our entire community. I want to thank the city council for their fiscal stewardship, and our fire chief and crew for their dedicated service.

Several candidates running for a seat on the Pajaro Valley Unified School District Board of Trustees for the November election met July 25 at a forum hosted by the Pajaro Valley Federation of Teachers. 

Roughly 30 teachers attended, alongside several candidates for school board, including Eriberto Estrada and Incumbent Daniel Dodge Jr, both running for Trustee Area Four, and Mads Realmuto, running for Trustee Area Seven against incumbent Misty Navarro, who sent in a pre-recorded statement. 

The meeting served as an initial introduction to who the candidates are, and what their priorities will be if elected. 

Joy Flynn, who currently holds the seat for Area 1, has said that she will not seek reelection. Andrew Goldenkranz and Meilin Obinata showed up at the Saturday forum for that seat

The Pajaronian has reached out to trustee Olivia Flores to ask if she plans to run for reelection to Area 5, but she did not respond by publication. As of July 30, nobody has filed to run for that seat, but Jennifer Schacher, who previously sat on the board, has expressed interest. 

Meilin Obinata

Obinata traces her decision to run for school board to a day spent decluttering her home, where she describes an a-ha moment that convinced her to run. 

“One thing about decluttering is that it means you have to deal with past mistakes,” said Obinata. “ I do think we need some of that in the district, decluttering of ideas.”

Obinata grew up attending PVUSD schools and has worked in academic counseling from San Francisco and the East Bay to Santa Cruz and Monterey County. She says she’s seen how different districts operate, and is prepared to bring that background to PVUSD, working closely with students and teachers. 

“As people working in the district, you actually have a lot of evidence about what is working, and what is not working,” Obinata said, addressing the crowd of teachers. “I believe part of what makes for a successful board is to receive evidence from you. There is no schooling without teachers. There just isn’t.”

Andrew Goldenkranz

Andrew Goldenkranz worked for 37 years as a science teacher, starting at EA Hall Middle School and eventually moving to work in the South Bay. Now, he wants to translate those years of experience into a position as board trustee. 

Goldenkranz says he would advocate for an administrative hiring freeze until contract negotiations with the teacher’s union are settled. He also said he would dip into the board’s 10% reserve funds to solve pressing issues immediately. 

“When we were raising my family, it was nice to put money in savings, but sometimes you couldn’t do that, because you had more important needs to do,” Goldenkranz said. “So I think it’s time to settle the current issues now.”

Like Obinata, Goldenkranz can also recall the day he decided to run for trustee. While on business in Sacramento, he ran into Tony Thurmond, the superintendent for the state of California, who he knows from past work. 

Thurmond had one question for him: “What the F is going on in Pajaro Valley?” 

Having recently retired from education, that interaction convinced Goldenkranz that PVUSD is a district that needs support, which he plans to do by focusing on student achievement and pragmatic budgeting. He says another big priority will be avoiding what he describes as the “histrionics” of recent meetings. 

“The board, among other things, needs to model the kind of behaviour we expect from ourselves and kids,” Goldenkranz said. “That’s simply not happening.”

Candidates have until August 7th to file paperwork to appear on the November ballot.

#tdi_1 .td-doubleSlider-2 .td-item1 { background: url(https://pajaronian.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/misty-navarro-pic-80x60.jpg) 0 0 no-repeat; } #tdi_1 .td-doubleSlider-2 .td-item2 { background: url(https://pajaronian.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/goldenkranz-80x60.jpg) 0 0 no-repeat; } #tdi_1 .td-doubleSlider-2 .td-item3 { background: url(https://pajaronian.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/mads-realmuto-80x60.jpg) 0 0 no-repeat; } #tdi_1 .td-doubleSlider-2 .td-item4 { background: url(https://pajaronian.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/eriberto-80x60.jpg) 0 0 no-repeat; } #tdi_1 .td-doubleSlider-2 .td-item5 { background: url(https://pajaronian.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/dodge-file-7-23-80x60.jpg) 0 0 no-repeat; } #tdi_1 .td-doubleSlider-2 .td-item6 { background: url(https://pajaronian.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/jennifer-schacher-8-24-80x60.jpg) 0 0 no-repeat; } 1 of 6 Misty Navarro (Contribiuted) Andrew Goldenkranz (LinkedIn) Mads Realmuto (Todd Guild/The Pajaronian) Eriberto Estrada (Tarmo Hanniula/The Pajaronian) Erik Chalhoub/Register-Pajaronian Daniel Dodge Jr. (right) congratulates newly sworn-in Mayor Francisco Estrada during the Watsonville City Council meeting Tuesday. Dodge was sworn into the Pajaro Valley Unified School District Board of Trustees the following night.Daniel Dodge Jr. (Tarmo Hannula/The Pajaronian) Jennifer Schacher (Contributed)

HashiCorp cofounder Mitchell Hashimoto has launched a new startup to build a server-side terminal multiplexer that allows programmers to switch between multiple persistent work sessions. Superlogical promises its terminal multiplexer will be faster and keep better track of user jobs. And it could be instrumental to building durable agentic layers into future systems. The problem with traditional multiplexers – such as tmux, Zellij and GNU Screen – is that they are all too slow, explained Superlogical cofounder Mitchell Hashimoto in a video posted on X. They duplicate everything the user types and have to constantly reconcile local and remote states. Even slapping a modern terminal such as Kitty, Alacritty or Ghostty in front of a multiplexer won’t do much to speed ops. “A terminal multiplexer may sound like a narrow place to start a company,” the company admits on its website. But the lowly terminal is the common denominator across today’s developers, agents, tools, and infrastructure. For Hashimoto, today’s computer architecture is missing a fundamental primitive: a stateful session for the work itself. With work spanning machines and users, a task needs its own space for context, data, and history. Turning a terminal into a business The technology builds on a project called Ghostty, a modern terminal emulator that Hashimoto began developing while he was still at HashiCorp, the company he co-founded. One of the oldest tools in the computer stack, a terminal emulator is simply a text-based window on the screen where developers can enter commands for the computer, either locally or remotely. Taking its name from the physical terminals of a bygone era, the terminal is where one finds the “command line interface” or CLI. The terminal geeks quickly and widely adopted the GPU-driven Ghostty for both its lightning-fast performance and wealth of features – two qualities other emulators rarely possessed in tandem. Hashimoto also extracted the core Ghostty engine into its own software library, libghostty, for others to build upon. Superlogical plans to eliminate that client/server duplication by building on libghostty. In Superlogical's approach, the client sends terminal input to the server, much like an SSH session, while the server maintains the persistent session state. This lets users disconnect and return later, while a smart client handles rendering and scrolling locally rather than waiting for a network round trip. “It does require that every connecting client be a very smart, high-functioning, compliant client,” such as one built on libghostty, Hashimoto said. But this approach sounds better than dispatching streams of raw ASCII hither and yon. Beyond describing the headaches of multiplexers in his introductory video, Hashimoto didn’t divulge much more about the newly founded company’s plans, but the mission will no doubt involve expanding on the concept of managing work sessions in a standardized and scalable way. Gergely Orosz, author of the popular Pragmatic Engineer Substack, speculated on X that the Superlogical team would “be building an AI-native ‘agentic operating system’ that sits a level above OSes." ®

A new art exhibit is going up at PV Arts at the Porter Building in downtown Watsonville and runs from Aug. 4 through Sept. 19. 

“Body Marking: Art, Ritual & Story” explores global practice of marking the body as a form of personal expression, cultural identity, and sacred ritual, PV Arts said. 

According to the organization, humans have adorned their skin to tell stories, express beliefs, celebrate rites of passage, and resist erasure.

Curated by Roberta Valdez, the exhibit features 33 artists in a variety of mediums, including photography, paintings, ceramics, textiles, sculpture and drawing. 

Organizers added that the show goes “from the intricate patterns of Māorī tā moko and Japanese irezumi to contemporary tattooing, scarification, and body painting, body marking continues to evolve as both art form and statement.”

Valdez said, “I think that a lot of us have had fascinations with tattoos since we were young people. A lot of the artists in this exhibit, the tattoo artists in particular, grew up drawing on themselves or putting tattoos on their friends and when they saw tattoo artists working they knew that that’s what they wanted to do.”

Valdez said she has been working on the concept of the show for the past two years and visited numerous tattoo shops, between Mendocino County and Long Beach, to bolster her research. 

“I’m an anthropologist by training, so I looked at the spectrum of people around the world now and in history and even prehistory marking bodies for ritual. To think of the skin as a canvas—it’s amazing to think about.” 

The show will also feature a film, demonstrations, talks and more.

#tdi_2 .td-doubleSlider-2 .td-item1 { background: url(https://pajaronian.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/PV-Arts-2-80x60.jpg) 0 0 no-repeat; } #tdi_2 .td-doubleSlider-2 .td-item2 { background: url(https://pajaronian.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/PV-Arts-3-80x60.jpg) 0 0 no-repeat; } #tdi_2 .td-doubleSlider-2 .td-item3 { background: url(https://pajaronian.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/PV-Arts-4-1-80x60.jpg) 0 0 no-repeat; } #tdi_2 .td-doubleSlider-2 .td-item4 { background: url(https://pajaronian.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/PV-Arts-5-80x60.jpg) 0 0 no-repeat; } 1 of 4 PAINTED “Structured” is a photograph by Brenda Leach. THREADS The skeleton seated on a mirror is fabric sewn together by Susan Ele titled “Lydia the Tattooed Lady.” CARDBOARD Melanie Oldach created “The Golden Couple” with cardboard and paint. NEW EXHIBIT Mark Overgaard entered this photograph in the show.

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz says President Donald Trump is lying about who committed the cyberattack on his state—and purposefully hiding how many states were affected.

Trump on Friday dismissed concerns that Iran was likely responsible for a cyberattack against Minnesota’s municipal water systems, instead blaming state officials. The president did not provide any evidence for his claim.

Shortly after, Walz fired back.

“Trump knows exactly who is responsible for this attack, and knows that other states were hit too,” Walz wrote in a post on X. “This is what modern warfare looks like, and it further illustrates there’s no plan to win a war with Iran.”

In the last week, at least seven states have reported cyberattacks against their municipal water systems, according to the FBI. Though the attacks haven’t been definitively attributed, federal and state officials say they carried trademarks of Iranian hackers.

Still, Trump ranted wildly during his Cabinet meeting at Camp David, asserting that Minnesota was to blame for the attack. “You know who’s behind it? Minnesota. Because they’re grossly incompetent. I think the governor’s behind it. I don’t think there was an Iranian cyberattack,” Trump said.

The Trump administration has long targeted Minnesota and its large immigrant population, due to the president’s blatant Islamophobia. The president has continued to pursue fraud allegations against Minnesota officials in a transparent effort to punish Democrats and antagonize immigrants.

⚡ Quick Take

• Oscar-winning actor Mahershala Ali confirms that he won’t be Marvel Studios’ Blade.
• He said “If they wanted to do the movie, we would’ve done the movie.”
• This follows Kevin Feige’s comments that he feels like a failure for letting the project fizzle.

If you were holding out any hope that Marvel Studios was ever going to make that Blade movie with Mahershala Ali happen, well, the Oscar-winning actor just threw some cold water on your face today. As far as he’s concerned, the Blade movie isn’t happening ever, at least not with him starring as the Daywalker. While speaking with GQ Magazine to promote his new film Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother, directed by one of the directors of the failed Blade reboot, he pretty much killed all hope we’d ever see him as the character. After Kevin Feige recently admitted he felt like a total failure for never getting Blade off the ground, GQ asked Ali if we’d ever see the film with him in the role. Here’s what he had to say:

Not with me. The best way I can answer this question is, when I look at what is for me, is it was either this or that—and I’ll take this. No offense to them. I’ve been doing this professionally for pushing 30 years now, and one thing I’ve learned is that what is for you is for you and what is not is not. For whatever reason, that project is not for me. If they wanted to do it, we would’ve done it. So I have to move on, and I have moved on. Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother feels very much in alignment with the type of work I want to be known for. I don’t really want to be known for remakes. I’d love to do original work that resonates with people and impacts them in unique ways.

So, I’m good. [Laughs.] Again, you had me under contract, they have billions of dollars, if they wanted to do the movie, we would’ve done the movie. So we’re not doing the movie. When I look at this and Blade, I couldn’t have done both, and the reason this even exists is because that project fell apart and Bassam had the time, space, energy, and focus to go and write this and then re-approach me. And I was able to use those skills that I had been working on for over a year training for Blade. In that way, I feel creatively redeemed on some level, just in my own journey between me, myself, and I. But I feel ready to move on from the Blade questions. Those questions are for them. They didn’t want to do it, so they should answer that question.

Marvel Studios

Mahershala Ali does not mince words here. He pretty much lays the blame for Blade never materializing on Kevin Feige and Marvel Studios. Over the seven years since Blade was announced at Hall in 2019, the movie has gone through one of the most tumultuous development processes in modern movie history. Originally, the film was going to be directed by Bassam Tariq. It cast celebrated actors like Sinners’ Delroy Lindo and future Lanterns star Aaron Pierre. (He would honestly make a great Blade himself one day). Tariq reimagined Blade as a period piece set in the 1920s. But that version fell through, leaving everyone back at square one.

Later, Yann Demange came on board to direct, leaving as set construction began. Writers like X-Men ’97’s Beau DeMayo and even True Detective creator Nic Pizzolatto took turns on the script. But sadly, nothing came of them. Finally, Marvel removed Blade from their schedule completely, after years of delays, and millions of dollars spent. Wesley Snipes returned as the original Blade in Deadpool and Wolverine, cracking a joke that would become prophetic: “There’s only ever going to be one Blade.” In the end, though, Mahershala Ali did get to play Blade in the MCU once. You can hear his voice in the end-credits stinger for Eternals. One day, Marvel will crack Blade. He’s too important a character not to. But it won’t ever be with Mahershala Ali, that much is clear.

The post Mahershala Ali Says He’s Moved on From Marvel Studios’ BLADE appeared first on Nerdist.

National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett appeared on Fox Business Friday to try to spin the woeful 1.5% GDP growth last quarter, rising inflation, and surging farm bankruptcies. “I think that America’s farmers have had some tough breaks,” Hassett said. “A bumper crop in Brazil made it so prices went down globally, the disruptions in the Gulf have made fertilizer prices go up, and it’…

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New research from the U.K.’s Imperial College and France’s Emlyon Business School mapped out how Silicon Valley founders commit fraud — and the role investors play.

Eddie Duino was 8 years old the first time his father brought him to what was then the Watsonville Country Club.

Nearly eight decades later, he still walks the fairways of the same Royal Oaks course, now known as Pajaro Valley Golf Club, teaching the game he has devoted his life to while reflecting on the generations of golfers who have come through its gates.

“My dad brought me here when I was about eight years old,” Duino said. “There’s a lot of history here.”

LESSONS Eddie Duino has been teaching golf lesson at the Pajaro Valley Golf Club for over 50 years.

That history reaches a milestone this year as Pajaro Valley Golf Club celebrates its 100th anniversary, marking a century as one of the Central Coast’s oldest golf courses. While the club plans a yearlong series of tournaments and special events through June 2027, perhaps no one embodies its legacy better than Duino, who has spent 65 years as a golf instructor, including the past three decades at Pajaro Valley Golf Club.

For Duino, now in his 80s, the course is more than a workplace.

“It’s like you’re out in a park,” he said. “You’re in the country.”

He has played nearly every course in Santa Cruz County and spent years as the head golf professional at Seascape Golf Club, a place he still speaks fondly of. But Pajaro Valley remains special.

Unlike courses hemmed in by homes and busy roads, Pajaro Valley feels tucked away among oak trees, Monterey cypress and farmland, with views stretching toward Elkhorn Slough.

“You’ll see deer run through here, turkeys, lots of birds,” he said. “It’s got a lot of character.”

Duino also believes the course strikes a rare balance.

“It’s nice enough for a good player—it’s very challenging,” he said. “But for the average player, it’s very user-friendly. It’s got everything.”

That accessibility has helped make the course a destination for generations of local golfers, from beginners taking their first lesson to experienced players returning year after year.

Duino knows many of them by name.

Teaching golf has been his life’s work.

“I must like something about it because I started my career, which I’ve never changed,” he said. “I’ve been at it for 67 consecutive years.”

In the golf business, he said, teaching is often something professionals do after years of running clubs or competing. For him, however, helping players improve has become the most rewarding part of the game.

He still jokes with students, critiques swings and hands out novelty T-shirts proclaiming, “I take lessons from Eddie Duino.”

His enthusiasm has hardly faded.

That continuity mirrors the course itself.

Originally established in 1926, the property began as the Watsonville Country Club. Its first nine holes were designed by Peter Hay, the longtime golf professional at Pebble Beach. Before it became a golf course, the site played an important role in the region’s agricultural economy, serving as Hudson Landing, where barges loaded with produce traveled through Elkhorn Slough before railroads transformed transportation on the Central Coast.

Today, golfers still experience much of the landscape that first attracted visitors a century ago.

“It’s a unique location within the wonderful agricultural context of the Pajaro Valley,” said Mark Swartz, director of operations for the club. “Rolling terrain, mature Monterey cypress and views of the Elkhorn Slough—it is truly a special property.”

Swartz said preserving that character while preparing the club for another century is the guiding philosophy behind its long-term plans.

Those plans include a new clubhouse, restaurant, banquet facility and visitor accommodations, along with environmental improvements designed to reduce water use and protect nearby habitat. The owners are also exploring public trails connecting the property to Elkhorn Slough and hope to permanently preserve 51 acres of resource conservation land bordering the estuary.

The course’s proximity to Elkhorn Slough, one of California’s largest tidal wetlands, has shaped those plans.

“Our approach requires the natural hydrology flow through bioswales that support the creation of additional native habitat while cleansing the water as it moves toward the slough,” Swartz said. “Environmental quality drives our solution-based approach.”

While much has changed since Duino first arrived as a boy, he still remembers the families who built the club.

He attended college with Charles Leiter, whose family owned the course for many years, another thread connecting his own story with the club’s history.

“There’s a lot of history here,” he said again.

Brian Robbeloth, the club’s general manager, believes visitors sense that history almost immediately.

“This course has a unique history and personality that people immediately feel when they arrive,” he said in announcing the centennial celebration. “There’s a sense of authenticity here that has stayed with the property for generations.”

As the club looks toward its second century, Duino isn’t focused on development plans or anniversary festivities.

He talks instead about the feeling golfers get when they step onto the first tee.

Away from traffic, surrounded by open space and wildlife, the course offers something increasingly difficult to find on California’s crowded coast.

For nearly 100 years, generations of golfers have come to Pajaro Valley Golf Club searching for that experience.

Few have appreciated it longer than Eddie Duino, who first arrived with his father as an 8-year-old boy and never really left.

President Trump won’t let go of his corrupt IRS settlement.

At a Cabinet meeting hosted Friday at Camp David in Maryland, Trump was asked by a reporter whether the “Anti-Weaponization Fund” created by his settlement with the IRS, which set aside $1.776 billion for anyone who felt politically prosecuted by the government, was actually dead and, if it was, why the Department of Justice wouldn’t put that in writing.

“Well, it is dead, but you know, I wish it weren’t, to be honest with you. I think people were horribly treated, horribly abused,” Trump said. “I’d like to see them compensated for the pain. They lost their families. They committed suicide, many people committed suicide.”

Trump on the weaponization fund: "It's dead, but I wish it weren't" pic.twitter.com/2S4pyKt5xm

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 31, 2026

So just to recap: Trump doesn’t want the slush fund dead, despite past claims from the Department of Justice that the fund isn’t moving forward.

Trump was also asked about whether he was willing to waive the settlement’s provision that he, his family, and his businesses would be protected from all IRS audits in the future in order to have acting Attorney General Todd Blanche confirmed. He dodged the question, only saying Blanche “should be confirmed forthwith.”

All of this points to Trump trying to hold on to the IRS settlement even after federal judges have ruled against it. It raises the question of whether he’s still going to try and implement the fund secretly—and validates the Republican holdouts who are refusing to confirm Blanche until they get some answers.

As an aside, Trump’s claim that the fund is necessary due to suicide among January 6 insurrectionists is rich. On Thursday, New Jersey Governor Mike Sherill proclaimed July 30 “Brian Sicknick Day,” in honor of the Capitol Police officer and Garden State native who died from his injuries one day after responding to the Capitol riots. Four other police officers who responded to the riots committed suicide within seven months.

Settling into the Sunset West Best Western Hotel on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, my wife Sarah and I had a couple days to explore the old and new of one of America’s largest cities. 

In this third part of a series, we wander the busy streets of a place built around the theme of sunny palm trees that have no business being there. Thanks to folks in the early 20th-century, real estate marketing and the film industry, tens of thousands of palm trees, mostly Mexican fan palms, were planted along major boulevards to give L.A. a tropical, Mediterranean tone.

We were now on day three of a nine-day road trip from Watsonville to Southern California. Two nights in Los Angeles on Sunset Boulevard barely gave us enough time to absorb the wide scope of the place, but we had a colorful list of things to do including the Laurel Canyon Country Store. 

Built in 1919 as a lodge for local hunters, the hillside wooden store eventually became a melting pot for Hollywood stars and pop music icons. Orson Welles, Clara Bow and Errol Flynn all lived here. Rock musician Frank Zappa lived nearby, and Mama Cass of the Mamas and the Papas lived in the basement. Cass would later introduce Graham Nash to David Crosby and Stephen Stills to the place while Jim Morrison, lead singer for the The Doors, lived next door.

We also stopped by the Charlie Chaplin studios at the corner of La Brea Avenue and Sunset Boulevard. This is where the famed filmmaker and actor worked and filmed several of his movies between 1917 and 1953. The spot later earned a designation as a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument.

The La Brea Tar Pits and Museum was next. The tourist attraction is still an active paleontological research site in urban Los Angeles and sits at the center of Hancock Park that includes a group of tar pits where natural asphalt has gurgled up from the ground for tens of thousands of years. Researchers have discovered the well-preserved bones of ancient animals that got trapped in the tar. Indoors, the public can watch a team of researchers picking apart scads of fossils under microscopes in their lab.

We had our first dinner on Sunset Boulevard, across from our hotel in the Rail Diner, fashioned from a 1936 railroad passenger car. While many meals in that area seemed expensive to us, our meal tab was $21.

We drove past the RMS Queen Mary, a massive passenger ship launched in 1936 and famous for its luxury and its important role as a World War II troopship.

In the next part of this series we head south to Huntington Beach for birding, the 1776 California Mission at San Juan Capistrano and on to Carlsbad.

#tdi_1 .td-doubleSlider-2 .td-item1 { background: url(https://pajaronian.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/LA-trav-2-1-80x60.jpg) 0 0 no-repeat; } #tdi_1 .td-doubleSlider-2 .td-item2 { background: url(https://pajaronian.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/LA-trav-3-80x60.jpg) 0 0 no-repeat; } #tdi_1 .td-doubleSlider-2 .td-item3 { background: url(https://pajaronian.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/LA-trav-4-80x60.jpg) 0 0 no-repeat; } 1 of 3 MOVIE FANS Huge crowds swarm Hollywood Boulevard as the premiere of “Master of the Universe” movie unfolds. ALL ABOARD The RMS Queen Mary is docked permanently in Long Beach. The city purchased the retired British ocean liner in 1967 and it now serves as a hotel. STILL BUBBLING The La Brea Tar Pits and Museum in Los Angeles is still an active paleontological research site.

As a fifth-grader, Sofia Vasquez found math intimidating.

That changed when her older sister began tutoring her.

Her sister, now 15, had previously attended the Bruce W. Woolpert Algebra Academy, a free weeklong summer program that prepares students entering eighth grade for advanced math courses. This year, Sofia followed in her footsteps.

Now the Rolling Hills Middle School student says the subject that once frustrated her has become one of her favorites.

“I like how math can be challenging,” she said.

Sofia is among 165 students taking part in this year’s academy, now in its 17th year. The program, created by former Graniterock CEO Bruce Woolpert, has grown from just 40 students in its first year into a regional effort serving students from Santa Cruz, Monterey and San Benito counties.

Rolling Hills Middle School teacher Nick Bugayong has watched that growth firsthand.

Bugayong joined the academy 16 years ago, the same year he began teaching at Rolling Hills. Since then, he has seen the program expand to four locations—Graniterock, Driscoll’s, Joby Aviation and Taylor Farms’ One Main Street conference center in Salinas—while adding partnerships with educators, colleges and local businesses.

The academy brings together students from 17 middle schools in five school districts, including Pajaro Valley Unified, Hollister Unified, Aromas-San Juan, North Monterey County and Salinas Union High School District.

Its goal, Bugayong said, is to strengthen students’ understanding of the foundational algebra concepts they will encounter in eighth-grade math while connecting them with peers who share their interests.

“It increases their exposure and connection with other schools and other students who have the aptitude and appreciation in math,” he said.

The curriculum focuses on core algebra skills such as solving equations, linear equations and slope—concepts Bugayong said high school teachers and college professors consistently identify as stumbling blocks for students.

“The things that the high school teachers and college professors have pinpointed as being struggles for the students is what the academy hits,” he said.

The academy also exposes students to potential career paths through its corporate partners. In addition to tours at host companies, participants visit Cal State Monterey Bay, where they learn about college opportunities and STEM careers.

For Bugayong, those experiences are as valuable as the math lessons.

“The unique thing about the program is you don’t know what’s going to stick with the kids,” he said.

Over the years, he has watched former participants excel in advanced math classes, organize math nights at their schools and return to the academy as high school mentors. Others have gone on to attend Cal State Monterey Bay before returning as teaching assistants.

“They become leaders in their school,” he said. “You don’t know exactly what it’s going to produce, but it’s going to produce something.”

He said enrichment opportunities like the academy are especially important for students who are eager for academic challenges.

“It’s rare sometimes to find an enrichment program that pushes students who might not get challenged elsewhere during the summer, during even the school year,” he said.

This year’s academy is staffed by 48 instructors, eighth-grade teachers, college students and high school mentors, maintaining a 1-to-4 staff-to-student ratio designed to provide individualized support.

“The strength of the Algebra Academy is the combination of high expectations and strong support,” Executive Director Christy Sessions said. “That small-group approach ensures every student has the guidance and encouragement they need to grow their skills and confidence.”

For 14-year-old Sara Anaya, also a Rolling Hills student, the academy was an easy decision.

She enrolled after encouragement from both her mother and a teacher.

“But also because I just genuinely enjoy doing math,” she said. “I thought it would be fun.”

She says math comes more naturally to her than most other subjects, but one of her favorite parts of the academy has been meeting students from other schools.

“You just get to be around different types of people and interact with different personalities,” she said. “I feel like if you just come in with an open mind, you’ll have more fun.”

#tdi_2 .td-doubleSlider-2 .td-item1 { background: url(https://pajaronian.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/algebra-academy-jatzibe--80x60.jpg) 0 0 no-repeat; } #tdi_2 .td-doubleSlider-2 .td-item2 { background: url(https://pajaronian.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/algebra-academy-kevin-80x60.jpg) 0 0 no-repeat; } #tdi_2 .td-doubleSlider-2 .td-item3 { background: url(https://pajaronian.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/chart-80x60.jpg) 0 0 no-repeat; } 1 of 3 ATTENTION Jatzibe Lopez, 13, listens to the instruction. (Todd Guild/The Pajaronian) STUDIOUS Kevin Ocampo works through a problem with the help of the instructor. (Todd Guild/The Pajaronian) CHARTED A student follows the instruction with a worksheet. (Todd Guild/The Pajaronian)

Rose Ann Woolpert, a Graniterock owner and academy board member, said those relationships are central to the program’s mission.

She pointed to the importance of mentors throughout history and literature, saying Bugayong exemplifies that role for the academy’s students.

“Nick is the ultimate mentor bringing up these kids,” she said.

She hopes participants return to their own campuses ready to encourage younger students, just as Sofia’s sister inspired her.

“We want you to be mentors,” Woolpert said of the program’s participants. “We want you to go back and share your stories about math to your brothers and sisters and your classmates and about how great it is to learn math.”

Ultimately, Woolpert said, the academy is about opening doors.

“We’re about building futures,” she said. “That’s our mission statement. And we want these kids to come back and work for us, and they do.”