Category: Sacramento

SANTA CLARA – Time to swipe the NFL Draft board and clean out my notebook with 10 items learned in the 49ers’ bunker at Levi’s Stadium. 1. TACKLE FOOTBALL It’s neither shocking nor problematic that the 49ers did not draft an offensive tackle. Not many come ready to start, and eight were gone by the 49ers’ original spot at No. 31. Guess what: the 49ers shouldn’t be drafting much higher in future years by staying in Super Bowl contention. Thus, Trent Williams and Colton McKivitz are the certified bookends protecting Brock Purdy, for at least 2024, maybe ‘25. 2. NO DEFENSIVE LINEMEN For only the second time in 12 years, the 49ers did not select a defensive lineman. This, the same franchise that selected one with its top pick in six of the previous nine drafts. Sure, they added Leonard Floyd and Yetur Gross-Matos in free agency, but this puts 2022 top pick Drake Jackson on notice to produce and feast — for a full season. Same goes for Robert Beal Jr. and Austin Bryant. Keep that “Help Wanted” sign in the window. 3. CONTACT

By CHRIS BIDERMAN | Sacramento Bee The grass berm beyond the right field wall at Sutter Health Park was spattered with a bright green armada on Saturday night as Oakland Athletics fans made the trip to the team’s future home to continue voicing their disapproval of the team’s ownership. It was another protest event put on by the fan group Last Dive Bar and the first in the capital region ahead of the A’s temporary move to West Sacramento. It was a quiet protest that gained its voice in the top of the fifth inning of the game between the River Cats and Las Vegas Aviators. “Sell! The! Team! Sell! The! Team!” a couple of hundred fans chanted, donning their green “Sell” shirts while unfurling their matching flags. Many of the fans participating made the drive northeast up Interstate 80 from the Bay Area while others were from the Central Valley, some of whom attended the game after pondering A’s owner John Fisher’s decision to move the team out of Oakland. In the meantime, of course, the A’s will play at Sutter Health Park for

On this “Face the Nation” broadcast, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and UNICEF executive director Catherine Russell join Margaret Brennan.

This week on “Face the Nation,” Hanna Siegel, the niece of American Keith Siegel, who is being held hostage by Hamas, joins Margaret Brennan one day after Hamas released a “proof of life” video featuring her uncle. Plus, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell says he stands by “everything” he said in the days and weeks after the Jan. 6 attack about former President Donald Trump’s actions related to that day.

UNICEF executive director Catherine Russell tells “Face the Nation” that she recently visited the Israeli-occupied West Bank and saw firsthand the devastation from the uptick violence, while she also met with the Israeli families of those held hostage by Hamas. “I came back feeling like, there’s just so much pain and misery everywhere you look,” she said.

Israel’s war on Hamas has a new frontline — campus protests and free speech battles at colleges in the U.S. Mark Strassmann reports.

The Duke of Sussex will attend the thanksgiving service for the 10th anniversary of the Invictus Games Foundation in London on May 8.

Nonprofit organization World Central Kitchen is set to resume its aid work in Gaza, weeks after seven aid workers were killed.

Warriors beat writer Danny Emerman gives his thoughts on the NBA playoffs and beyond. Pascal Siakam made a handful of big plays down the stretch before Tyrese Haliburton’s overtime game-winner gave the Pacers a 2-1 series lead over the Bucks. He’s now averaging 30 points, 11 rebounds, and four assists through three playoff games. Sounds like a guy the Warriors would’ve liked to have. The Pacers acquired Siakam before the trade deadline for two bench players and three first-round picks — two of which will be in the 20s of this year’s weak draft. Golden State could have beaten that. The Warriors need to get bigger and more athletic. They need more two-way players who can create their own offense against mismatches next to Steph Curry. Siakam is that kind of player. Siakam is what even the biggest Jonathan Kuminga believers hope Kuminga becomes in three or four years: an All-Star-level player who can give you 30 on the biggest stages. Mike Dunleavy Jr. said after the season that there wasn’t anything on the table at the deadline that he wished he’d done in hindsight.

Trent Williams isn’t going anywhere. In the weeks leading up to the NFL Draft, the 49ers were telegraphing that they would take a tackle — the successor to Trent Williams, it was presumed — with the team’s first-round pick. But when the top of the first round featured seemingly nothing but quarterbacks, receivers, and offensive tackles, taking some presumed viable options for the 49ers off the board well before the team went on the clock, San Francisco pivoted. And when the Niners didn’t trade up to select Washington tackle Roger Rosengarten in the second round, the message it sent was unmistakable. Williams, 35, has flirted with retirement in recent seasons, but he is under contract to play for three more seasons with the Niners. By not taking his heir apparent in this draft, San Francisco has told the league they believe they’re getting at least two of those seasons from Williams. Otherwise, they would have taken a tackle and given him a season to learn from the master before taking over in 2025. This is not a team that messes around in the draft regarding

He’s been painting for more than 50 years, but artist Stanley Whitney – whose bold, colorful canvases offer vibrant hues and deliberately ferocious brushstrokes – is just now getting his first major retrospective (including many works never before exhibited publicly), at the Buffalo AKG Art Museum in Buffalo, N.Y. Correspondent Alina Cho talks with Whitney about the breakthrough that came during his artistic journey.

More than 100 tornadoes were detected in six states in the Midwest over the weekend.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, in an interview with “Face the Nation,” weighed in on Trump’s broad immunity claims.

2024 marks the 150th running of the Kentucky Derby at Louisville’s Churchill Downs, the longest continuously-held sporting event in America.

An official at the home of the Kentucky Derby calls an independent investigation into horse racing fatalities “a wake-up call for the industry,” and talks of initiatives to better protect equines and humans at the track.

The “Sunday Morning” book reviewer offers his picks from this month’s new fiction and non-fiction titles, including a new book by Amor Towles, author of “A Gentleman in Moscow,” and Judi Dench’s love letter to Shakespeare.

This month’s fiction and non-fiction titles include the follow-up from Amor Towles, author of the international sensation, “A Gentleman in Moscow.”

The novelist behind the international bestseller “A Gentleman in Moscow” returns with an irresistible collection of short stories and a novella flavored with wit, intrigue, and a dash of bitter fate.

In “Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent,” the acclaimed actress shares conversations with friend and actor Brendan O’Hea about the unique relationship she has with the Bard of Stratford-upon-Avon.

The acclaimed British author returns with a timely, tragic novel in which an Anglo-Indian is caught up in a quagmire of identity politics.

CORNING — It was “Friday Night Lights” years before anyone had heard of the book or movie. But instead of Odessa, Texas, the lights of the high school football world were shining most brightly on the small town of Corning. Corning owned the high school football world in the 1980s, building a legacy that no school in the state had accomplished before. Under the direction of coach Gary Burton, the Cardinals won an unprecedented seven consecutive North Section AAA championships — a record eventually topped only by De La Salle, the football-factory private school in Concord. During that streak (1982-88), Corning went 73-11 against a schedule that featured far more big schools than patsies. One example: The Cardinals faced Pleasant Valley six times in the 1980s and lost just once. Some of those games weren’t close; Corning won the 1983 meeting 45-6. J Howell, a history teacher at Pleasant Valley who played on the 1982-83 Cardinal teams, looks back on those years with a sense of amazement. “It’s almost like a different world,” Howell said. “When I tell people my senior year we (Corning) beat