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DAILYREPUBLIC.COM | Well said. Well read.
Solano board to review spending options for final $10M in ARPA funds Daily Republic Staff
DRNEWS@DAILYREPUBLIC.NET
FAIRFIELD — Solano County supervisors are scheduled Tuesday to consider recommendations on how to spend $10.564 million in federal pandemic relief money as it reviews various pandemic-related projects to address homelessness. The county has already allocated the vast majority of the $86.949 million in available American Rescue Plan Act pandemic relief funding. CAP Solano has prioritized a total of $8.631 million in pandemic relief spending to address homelessness: n The full updated request of $4.05 million for the Project Homekey/ Broadway Street project in Vallejo. n The full updated request of $2.2 million for a kitchen project and staffing at the homeless navigation center in Fairfield.
n $2 million of an updated $7.6 million request for construction of a homeless navigation center in Vallejo. n $381,000 of a $1.431 million request through the Vacaville Solano Services Corporation to boost My Friend’s House Shelter, which serves transitional-age teens and young adults ages 18 to 24. The county has requests pending for a bit more than $20.94 million in American Rescue Plan Act pandemic relief to address homelessness, not counting a request for $14.2 million from NorthBay Health to help balance its books and more than a dozen other unsolicited requests from agencies that include the Solano Land Trust, the Vacaville Neighborhood Boys & Girls Club, the Solano Transportation Authority and the nascent Pacific Flyway
President Joe Biden speaks during a visit to the Belmont Water Treatment Plant in Philadelphia, Friday.
US military downs Chinese balloon over Atlantic Ocean A U.S. fighter jet, acting on an order from President Biden, downed a Chinese surveillance balloon off the South Carolina coast on Saturday, the Pentagon said, ending what senior administration officials contend was an audacious attempt by Beijing to collect intelligence on sensitive American military sites. Biden had authorized the takedown on Wednesday, instructing the Pentagon to act “as soon as the mission could be accomplished without undue risk to American lives under the balloon’s path,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement confirming the operation. The president, in brief remarks to reporters, said: “They successfully took it down. And I want to compliment
our aviators who did it.” With a single missile fired from an F-22 Raptor, the craft was taken down at 2:39 p.m., shortly after the Federal Aviation Administration ordered ground stops for all flights in and out of Wilmington, N.C., Myrtle Beach, S.C., and Charleston, S.C. The agency lifted the order less than an hour later. Videos taken by onlookers showed shredded remnants of the balloon falling, leaving a white plume in its wake. One witness described hearing a “boom.” The days-long ordeal has caused a political furor in Washington and placed new strains on what was already a fraught relationship between the two world powers, leading the Biden administration to announce on See Balloon, Page A9
about the airmen during the Aviation Forum at the Vacaville Museum, Saturday.
Tuskegee Airmen history comes alive AT VACAVILLE MUSEUM Susan Hiland
SHILAND@DAILYREPUBLIC.NET
See Board, Page A9
Jose F. Moreno/The Philadelphia Inquirer/TNS
The Washington Post
Susan Hiland/Daily Republic
Aubrey Matthews, an expert on the history of the Tuskegee Airmen, speaks to a room of about 50 listeners
One of the uniforms on display in the “Solano Skies: A History of Aviation in Solano County” exhibit at the Vacaville Museum, Saturday.
VACAVILLE — Aubrey Matthews is an expert on the history of the Tuskegee Airmen. He regaled a full house of listeners Saturday at the Vacaville Museum. The museum is hosting a series of talks on aviation. The talks feature individuals with stories of experiences and expertise on the area of aviation. This coincides with its exhibit, “Solano Skies: A History of Aviation in Solano County.” Matthews, a Vietnam veteran, was born in Boulder, Colorado, before relocating to California and graduating from Vallejo High School in 1966. Up until he went to Vietnam he had never heard of the
Tuskegee Airmen. “People never talked about the Black officers who were part of the Tuskegee Airmen,” he said. Matthews heard stories while in the military but never the whole history. It was not until 2007, when he really started to hear about the history from airmen who were connected with the Tuskegee officers and pilots, that his interest was peaked. Working as an airframe technician, Matthews served in the U.S. Air Force from January 1967 until his honorable discharge in January 1971. He continued his career and passion of aircraft while working in places such as Mare Island, Travis See Airmen, Page A9
Russia attacks Vuhledar, previewing new push to seize southeast Ukraine
eastern front meets Rus-
the south, which in turn forms Putin’s much-coveted “land bridge” to Crimea from mainland Russia. It is close to a rail line connecting Crimea, a hub for Russian troops and supplies, and the Donbas region. Dykanka and other fighters said Russian troops have made near daily attempts to overwhelm Ukrainian forces defending Vuhledar and to breach Ukrainian lines extending northwest and southeast of the city. So far, the Ukrainians
sia’s line of control to
See Russia, Page A9
The Washington Post BOHOYAVLENKA, Ukraine – Russian forces have launched a midwinter surge of attacks in Ukraine’s hotly contested Donetsk region, probing Kyiv’s defenses along a fresh stretch of the sprawling eastern front as President Vladimir Putin’s commanders ready a new push to conquer all of southeast Ukraine. The attacks in recent days have centered on Vuhledar, a mostly deserted coal-mining city 70 miles southwest of Bakhmut, where Russian fighters have made some of their first territorial gains in months. Plumes of smoke rise almost constantly from Vuhledar, and the dark woods and rolling fields surrounding the city ring with mortar and artillery volleys from each side. “They have been pushing hard for last four days, but we have stopped them,” said Dykanka, a Ukrainian fighter whom
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Heidi Levine/The Washington Post
Ukrainian soldiers from the 68th Brigade fire mortars toward Russian positions in a village near the Ukrainian coal-mining city of Vuhledar, Saturday. The Washington Post agreed to identify only by his call sign because of security risks. Amid artillery blasts that shook snow from the bare tree branches, Dykanka, 43, was taking a break along a tank track cut through a forest outside of Vuhledar. An exposed cache of ready 155mm howitzer shells nearby were marked as “ordnance of the U.S. Army.” Vuhledar sits at a crucial bend in the battlefield near where the
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