How a surprising Shakespeare discovery was found in a letter used as scrap paper

• April 24, 2025

A 400-year-old Shakespeare mystery has gotten a major shake-up.

In a paper published in the journal “Shakespeare” on Wednesday, April 23 — the bard’s 461st birthday, if you’re buying candles and an extremely large cake — Professor Matthew Steggle, Chair in Early Modern English Literature at University of Bristol, presented research that finds potential significance in the scraps of a letter first discovered in 1978.

Incredibly, the letter scraps were found by accident inside a nearly 1,000-page religious tome housed in the library of the U.K.’s Hereford Cathedral.

The letter appears to have been addressed to “Good Mrs Shakspaire” concerning an apprentice named John Butts (or Butte) and the young man’s interactions with her husband. As well, the letter says that the Shakespaires had lived on Trinity Lane, a street that still exists today in London. If this, in fact, turns out to be true about the Shakespeares, it’s a biographical nugget that has never previously been known and places them living together in London during the period when he wrote “Hamlet,” “Twelfth Night,” and other plays.

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The life story of William Shakespeare, as it’s usually told, is that he left Stratford-upon-Avon to make his name in the London theaters. It’s been thought that his wife, Anne Hathaway, stayed behind with their children, separated from him for unknown lengths of time until he returned to spend the last few years of his life in retirement. Then, upon his death, he left her “my second best bed with the furniture,” which scholars still puzzle over whether it’s a loving gesture (as it could refer to their shared marriage bed) or a final snub.

Amazingly, the correspondence wasn’t saved for its historical importance; it was essentially used as scrap paper, as Steggle writes in “The Shakspaires Of Trinity Lane: A Possible Shakespeare Life-Record”: “The two strips of the letter were used by the binders as ‘guards’, or padding to prevent the text block from chafing against the binding they were fitting to it, so the binders evidently regarded these strips as waste paper.”

The book’s publisher was Shakespeare’s Stratford neighbor Richard Field, who was also the playwright’s first printer.

Why wasn’t the 1978 discovery by librarian F.C. Morgan taken more seriously at the time? Steggle explains: “That Morgan did not do more with this discovery is understandable. He had recently celebrated his hundredth birthday, and in fact was dead by the time this note appeared in print. It was a late and startling highlight in a long career spent in English history.”

Steggle’s research was done for his forthcoming book, “William Shakespeare and the Early Modern World,” and throughout his piece, he is careful not to overstate the findings and suggest areas where it might be bolstered or challenged. Steggle answered questions via email about the letter and his research.

Q. How did you find the significance of this piece of letter?

I’m writing a Shakespeare biography, and found the document referenced briefly in one or two places, but nobody actually seemed to know anything about it. Then when I obtained photos of the two fragments, I thought, you could do things with this, especially with modern information technology that previous generations of scholars didn’t have access to. 

 Q. If true, what might it mean?

There’s this prevailing narrative that the Shakespeares’ marriage was very much an arms-length affair, with the wife as a distant encumbrance while he lived an exciting life in the city – the kind of thing you see in “Shakespeare in Love.” This suggests an alternative scenario in which they are living together, at least a bit, in London, with Anne involved in William’s social networks and financial affairs. 

Q. Might there be other scraps to search for?

Yes! It shows that new discoveries are still possible in 17th-century manuscript material, particularly in binding waste. In particular, as I say in the article, it makes one passionately curious about other books, printed like this one by Shakespeare’s associate Richard Field, which might still be in their original bindings. 

Q. Is there anything else about this that you’d like to say?

Only that this is part of a number of recent bits of work which are starting to reassess the Shakespeare womenfolk — in particular, the work of Katherine Scheil on other aspects of Anne Hathaway’s life. For a long time it was assumed that they were all illiterate yokels, and maybe that’s a simplification.

 Q. Could this explain why there isn’t much original Shakespeare writing or paperwork?

Funnily enough, I’d argue that actually there’s quite a decent paper trail for Shakespeare, by the standards of his day. There are dozens of, individually perhaps rather dry, documents collected on the fabulous site Shakespeare Documented: tax records, law cases, to say nothing of the numerous documents around his professional career. Those are the kinds of things that survive, by and large, whereas more personal papers almost invariably disappear. I’ve spent 20 years looking in archives for people whose lives are only known from half a dozen grubby bits of paper, and William Shakespeare is actually quite lavishly documented in comparison to many of them.

​ Orange County Register 

Even in California, access to death-with-dignity drugs can be refused

• April 24, 2025

I was extraordinarily humbled by the outpouring of empathy from so many readers after my father’s death in Florida, an ordeal (“Give me the needle!” Pops bellowed) that made me grateful I live in California. We’ve had a death with dignity law on the books since 2015; what a relief to know that my daughters won’t have to endure what I went through with my parents.

But that kind of care can be more difficult to access than one might expect, even here. And the law is set to sunset in 2031! I didn’t fully understand all this.

Philippe Tusler told me that his wife, in hospice care at Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian in 2021, was denied the right to choose her passing. Marie-Noële Anne Tusler had been battling pancreatic cancer for 14 months with many, many complications. When her oncologist said she was too weak to continue chemotherapy, she entered hospice at Hoag. Their daughters flew in from New York and San Francisco to say their farewells. Marie-Noële told the doctor that she was ready to die, and wanted to die.

“Hoag doesn’t do that,” the family was told, Tusler said.

Instead, they increased Marie-Noële’s pain meds, removed her hydration IV and let her die of dehydration over the next six days, he said. Tusler, his daughters and their husbands never left the hospital “while we watched her slowly die in discomfort and without dignity,” he said by email.

“This will remain etched in my memory as the most horrible experience of my life, and I can only imagine what she went through over those six days. Over three years later, I’m weeping as I write this.”

One of his daughters — a veterinarian — was outraged. An animal would never be subjected to that kind of suffering.

“Access to death with dignity, or ‘assisted suicide,’ as California chooses to describe it, is not automatic, is not easy,” Tusler said. “After querying the hospital and our GP, I still don’t know how this is supposed to work. … Something must be done to make this more available to people who need it. … Where is our dignity? Where is our right to choose how we leave the world?”

Proceed with caution

This is a cautionary tale. Turns out that, if one wants to keep the death with dignity option open, one might want to seek out health care practitioners without expressly religious bents before one might actually need them.

When Marie-Noële died on  Aug. 11, 2021, Hoag was still affiliated with Providence, a Catholic health care system. A handbook from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, entitled “Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services,” makes the faithful medical practitioner’s duties clear:

“The truth that life is a precious gift from God has profound implications for the question of stewardship over human life,” it says. “We are not the owners of our lives and, hence, do not have absolute power over life. We have a duty to preserve our life and to use it for the glory of God, but the duty to preserve life is not absolute, for we may reject life-prolonging procedures that are insufficiently beneficial or excessively burdensome. Suicide and euthanasia are never morally acceptable options. The task of medicine is to care even when it cannot cure.”

Abortion, euthanasia, assisted suicide and direct sterilization are of a moral gravity that can be identified as “intrinsically evil,” it said. So, no assisted suicide. But it’s not just religious institutions; others may be queasy about it, and participation is voluntary for all health care providers. Many providers, even non-religious ones, opt out.

While there are more than 125,000 licensed physicians in California, end-of-life prescriptions came from just 337 of them in 2023, according to state data.

“Providence provides care through the end of life that attends to the medical, physical, emotional, social and spiritual needs of patients and their loved ones,” said Patricia Aidem, spokesperson for Providence’s southern division, by email. “Our care is grounded in respecting the sacredness of life, honoring each person’s inherent dignity and worth and providing compassionate care to dying and other vulnerable people.

“We recognize that requests for provider-assisted death or self-administered life-ending medication will occur. As a Catholic health care organization, provider-assisted death conflicts with our values. Providence shares the stance of the American Medical Association: Provider-assisted death is fundamentally incompatible with the provider’s role as healer.”

If patients ask about California’s End of Life Option Act, Providence gives them publicly available information about the law — while also informing them that its doctors will not write the prescriptions and its caregivers cannot be present at or assist in hastening death, Aidem said.

“Short of those two things, Providence will not abandon our dying patients or their loved ones. We encourage open and non-judgmental communication with patients and their loved ones to help them understand their condition and their options about treatment through the end of life. Our commitment is to give people the very best care possible, keep them as comfortable as possible for as long as they do live and to provide appropriate support for dying patients and their loved ones through the final stages of life,” Aidem said.

Officials at Hoag didn’t respond to our queries about its current policies.

Hoag and Providence went their separate ways in 2022, but the moral of the story is this: If you want to keep this option open, ask the question of your practitioner and/or facility as early as possible — hopefully, long before you need hospice-level care (as changing venues at that point could be difficult and exhausting).

If your health care provider and/or hospital frown upon it, find one that does not. You can find more information about California’s End of Life Option Act at https://bit.ly/42WrhKn.

The law is currently set to sunset in 2031. A bill pending in Sacramento by Sen. Catherine Blakespear, D-Encinitas, would extend it indefinitely.

A well-lived life

Tusler’s wife Marie-Noële was born in Presles-en-Brie, France, in 1947. She grew up in a manor house on a large farm amid wheat fields, cattle, sheep and chickens; attended the Jeanne Gatineau School of Cosmetology in Paris; and met Tusler in 1981, when they were asked to be godparents for a baby boy, her obituary said.

Within days, Tusler knew he had met the love of his life. They married in 1982. California was home for Tusler; he was born and raised in Pasadena, went to school at UC Irvine, and they moved back to Orange County in 1984. They had two daughters. Marie-Noële loved to cook and was never without a vegetable peeler and kitchen knife, her obituary said; she owned a vast collection of cookbooks, served multiple-course meals and was renowned for her rillettes (a French charcuterie dish, essentially a meat spread). Her favorite, however, was fresh oysters.

Marie-Noele adored her home country and returned every year. She also loved to play petanque (a French lawn bowling game) so much she had a court put in at their French home. She frequented the brocantes — antique markets — in search of glass for her collection or paintings for the walls. She loved gardening so much she had more than 15 fruit trees in her yard, along with hydrangeas and lilies.

These are the memories to cling to, to ease the grief of that last week of life. “I don’t intend to let my end happen with needless suffering for everyone,” Tusler told me. “I don’t want it for me, I don’t want to put my children and grandchildren through what we experienced. … It’s so unnecessary.”

I couldn’t agree more. I thank Tusler for sharing Marie-Noële’s experience so that we may all learn from it. May her memory bring her family joy — and may Sen. Blakespear’s bill repealing the death-with-dignity sunset date pass resoundingly.

​ Orange County Register 

Texas lawmakers approve $1B private school voucher plan

• April 24, 2025

By JIM VERTUNO and NADIA LATHAN

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Texas lawmakers on Thursday passed a $1 billion education bill that allows families to use public money to pay for private school tuition, a major victory for school voucher proponents nationwide that was cheered on by President Donald Trump.

The measure won final approval from the state Senate and now heads to Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, who had muscled the GOP-majority Legislature to pass the bill and has vowed to quickly sign it into law.

More than 30 states have implemented some sort of voucher program in the U.S., and about a dozen states in recent years have launched or expanded programs that make most students eligible. Texas’ version will be among the largest in the nation and is seen as a major victory for proponents who hope to push a similar effort on the federal level.

“School choice has come to Texas,” said Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, a Republican who controls the Senate who has pushed for a voucher program for nearly 20 years.

For decades, the push in Texas had failed in the face of stiff resistance from Democrats and rural Republicans who called it a threat to public schools in a state that now has more than 5 million students in public classrooms.

But supporters gradually gained ground and Abbott, a three-term governor, threw his political muscle behind it in the 2024 elections by backing numerous candidates who would support it. That effort built the majority support the issue needed after decades of failure.

Trump played a key role in getting the measure through a critical state House vote a week ago, when he spoke with a group of Republican lawmakers on a speakerphone call and urged them to approve it.

The program in its first year would be capped at $1 billion and used by up to 90,000 students, but it could grow to nearly $4.5 billion per year by 2030. The money can be used for private school tuition or costs for home-schooling and virtual learning programs. Families could get up to $10,000 each year per student under the program, and a student with disabilities would be eligible for as much as $30,000 per year.

Supporters of the measure say the vouchers can help parents get their children out of poor-performing public schools and create competition that will force public schools to improve.

“The one thing that is missing from our education process that has really made America great is competition,” said Republican state Sen. Bob Hall.

Critics, however, argue it will weaken public schools by draining money and resources and giving them to private schools, who can have selective enrollment and may not operate under some of the same rules.

And they argue it will put money in the pocket of wealthier families already sending their children to costly private schools.

The bill is “not about ‘school choice,’” the Senate Democratic caucus said in a statement. “It’s about public subsidization of private schools’ choice. It’s a step backwards for Texas.”

The issue is not settled among Republicans nationwide. On Monday, North Dakota’s Republican Gov. Kelly Armstrong vetoed a private school voucher program in that state, saying the bill fell “far short of truly expanding choice as it only impacts one sector of our student population.”

Lathan is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

​ Orange County Register 

Horse racing notes: Kentucky Derby field still doesn’t include Baeza

• April 24, 2025

SANTA ANITA LEADERS

(Through Sunday)

Jockeys / Wins

Juan Hernandez / 6

Umberto Rispoli / 4

Hector Berrios / 3

Antonio Fresu / 3

Ricardo Gonzalez / 2

Geovanni Franco / 2

Trainers / Wins

Bob Baffert / 4

John Sadler / 4

Phil D’Amato / 4

(17 tied) / 1

UPCOMING STAKES

SANTA ANITA

Saturday

• $100,000, Grade III Royal Heroine Stakes, fillies and mares, 4-year-olds and up, 1 mile on turf

Sunday

• $100,000, Grade III Senorita Stakes, 3-year-old fillies, about 6½ furlongs on turf

LOS ALAMITOS

Saturday

• $40,000 Kaweah Bar Handicap, quarter horses, 3 and up, 350 yards

DOWN THE STRETCH

• Post positions and morning-line odds for the Kentucky Derby field of up to 20 horses – plus two also-eligibles — will be set Saturday in Louisville. Three California-based horses are in: likely favorite Journalism and the Bob Baffert-trained duo of Citizen Bull and Rodriguez. Baffert decided last Friday to switch Madaket Road to the Pat Day Mile on the Kentucky Derby undercard. As of Thursday morning, Baeza, second to Journalism in the Santa Anita Derby, needed three horses to drop out to make it into the Run for the Roses.

• Smarty Jones, the 2004 Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner, will be one of this year’s seven new members of the National Museum of Racing Hall of Fame, it was announced Thursday. Smarty Jones was the only candidate chosen by Hall of Fame voters from the “contemporary” category. Also elected were 1950s sprinter Decathlon, early-1900s star Hermis, trainer George Conway (best known for War Admiral), owner-breeder Arthur B. Hancock III (Sunday Silence), 1800s owner and racing promoter Richard Ten Broeck (Lexington) and racing journalist and historian Ed Bowen. Induction ceremonies are Aug. 1 in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. Nominees this year included California horses Blind Luck, Game On Dude, Kona Gold and Rags to Riches and trainers Doug O’Neill, John Sadler and John Shirreffs.

• Tirupati (Umberto Rispoli riding) goes for a second consecutive Grade III victory when the 4-year-old filly trained by Jonathan Thomas heads the crowded Royal Heroine Stakes at Santa Anita on Saturday. Co-leading trainer Phil D’Amato has 2024 Royal Heroine winner Uncorked (Mike Smith), improving Public Assembly (Antonio Fresu), Sun Of Hill (Tiago Pereira) and Eternal Reign (Reylu Gutierrez). If all 13 entrants run, it will be the largest stakes field at Santa Anita, Los Alamitos or Del Mar – outside of the two days of the Breeders’ Cup – since Artislas beat 12 opponents in the Del Mar Juvenile Turf Stakes on Sept. 8.

• Quarter horses Beyond Repair and jockey Ruben Lozano and Beuteeful and Jose Nicasio posted the fastest times, 15.681 and 15.771 for 300 yards, in Saturday’s trials for the May 11 Robert Adair Kindergarten Futurity at Los Alamitos.

• Two horses died in training at Santa Anita in the past week, both fatalities attributed to musculoskeletal injuries by the California Horse Racing Board website. The 5-year-old filly Blushing, a two-time winner in France, died April 18, and the 3-year-old colt Ivan the Great, a maiden winner at Del Mar, died Sunday. Six horses have died in racing and training at Santa Anita since the season opened Dec. 26, down from eight and seven in the same span the past two years. A total of 12 horses have died at Santa Anita and Los Alamitos since Dec. 26, down from 15 and 13 the past two years. Those counts are unofficial.

• Santa Anita stewards ordered Ms Brightside disqualified to last from a victory at the optional-claiming level Jan. 1 at Santa Anita because the 4-year-old filly tested positive for the anti-ulcer medication omeprazole. Owner Paul Gange, trainer Phil D’Amato and jockey Umberto Rispoli were stripped of their shares of the $20,400 winner’s purse. Ms Brightside is a contender in Santa Anita’s seventh race Friday.

• Los Alamitos announced the schedule for three stakes at its June 20-July 6 afternoon thoroughbred season. The $100,000 Bertrando Stakes at 1 mile on June 21, the $100,000 Los Alamitos Derby at 1⅛ miles on June 28, and the $200,000, Grade II Great Lady M. Stakes for fillies and mares at 6½ furlongs on July 5.

— Kevin Modesti

​ Orange County Register 

Santa Anita horse racing consensus picks for Friday, April 25, 2025

• April 24, 2025

The consensus box of Santa Anita horse racing picks comes from handicappers Bob Mieszerski, Eddie Wilson, Kevin Modesti and Mark Ratzky. Here are the picks for thoroughbred races on Friday, April 25, 2025.

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​ Orange County Register 

UCLA’s DeShaun Foster recalls ‘pretty cool’ NFL draft experience

• April 24, 2025

DeShaun Foster entered the Wasserman Football Center auditorium with a little extra bounce in his sneakers.

The UCLA football head coach looked at his wristwatch – the digital clock above him ticked 7:56 a.m. – and said aloud, “We’re starting early today,” before sprinting down the stairs to the podium for his press conference.

Thursday was not just the 11th spring practice for the Bruins. It was the first day of the NFL draft, and there was unmistakable enthusiasm in Foster’s voice.

“I remember this time myself,” said Foster, a Charlotte, North Carolina, native who was drafted in the second round of the 2002 draft by the Carolina Panthers after a decorated All-American career as a running back at UCLA out of Tustin High.

“You have no idea where you’re going end up going, but I was fortunate to get drafted back to a place where I was born. It was pretty cool to go through that experience.”

The coach suited up in the NFL for six seasons, highlighted by a memorable 33-yard touchdown run in Super Bowl XXXVIII, a game legendary scribe Peter King hailed as the “greatest Super Bowl of all time.”

Several Bruins hope to hear their names called during this year’s draft, including linebacker Carson Schwesinger, a Moorpark resident who starred at Oaks Christian High; defensive tackle Jay Toia, a Tonga native who won a CIF championship at Grace Brethren of Simi Valley; linebackers Oluwafemi Oladejo and Kain Medrano; and tight end Moliki Matavao.

Schwesinger is projected by experts to get drafted in the second round.

Foster said nearly all 32 NFL teams inquired about UCLA prospects before the draft.

After attending the 2024 draft in Detroit, the big cheese of Bruins football said he will not attend this year’s festivities in Wisconsin.

“We have practice,” Foster said. “It was tough last time. It was hard for me to recover, but we have 202 (people) at the house. It’s going to be hard for me to leave.”

Foster turned his attention to the 93 Bruins training during spring workouts.

“Pretty excited about this (practice),” the Bruins coach said Thursday morning. “I want to see how they respond from Tuesday. It was kind hard for them to get up after Friday Night Lights, so I’m just excited to see how they’re going to respond right now. They’ve done a pretty good job just meeting and doing the little things to improve each week.”

Foster emphasized two overarching points of emphasis this spring: “Win first down and run the ball efficiently,” he said.

Coaches have tracked the progress of defensive and offensive players fighting for starting gigs.

Centers Sam Yoon, Noah Pulealii, Caleb Walker and Oluwafunto Akinshilo worked on snaps with the six quarterbacks – including Henry Hasselbeck, who was out Tuesday for personal reasons – present during Thursday’s session. Yoon, a Pasadena native who excelled at Loyola High of Los Angeles, started the last eight games of the 2024 season at center. The honor roll student won the Ed “Coach K” Kezirian Award for earning the highest GPA among UCLA players last year.

“The O-line has been doing a good job the whole time this whole spring,” Foster said. “Running backs have been doing a good job finding holes. We were able to showcase that on Friday (Night Lights).”

High-profile transfer quarterback Nico Iamaleava (Tennessee) and his younger brother Madden (Arkansas) are expected to join the team this summer.

The Bruins plan to add a handful of more newcomers within the next few months, but Foster did not provide an exact figure to the media. “It’s a small amount,” he said.

A big part of keeping the team intact will be NIL money raised. The coach said football donations to the Bruins for Life official NIL fund will support scholarship, walk-on and developmental players. Schwesinger, for example, famously went from walk-on to All-American at UCLA, and now he’s projected to start in the NFL.

“I don’t want to lose players because they can’t afford to be on the team,” Foster said. “I don’t want that to be the reason for somebody to leave. We’re going to try to find ways to help guys and keep them around.”

​ Orange County Register 

Judge blocks parts of Trump’s overhaul of US elections, including proof-of-citizenship requirement

• April 24, 2025

By ALI SWENSON

NEW YORK (AP) — A judge on Thursday blocked the Trump administration from immediately enacting certain changes to how federal elections are run, including adding a proof-of-citizenship requirement to the federal voter registration form.

President Donald Trump had called for that and other sweeping changes to U.S. elections in an executive order signed in March, arguing the U.S. “fails to enforce basic and necessary election protections” that exist in other countries.

U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly in Washington sided with voting rights groups and Democrats to grant a preliminary injunction to stop the citizenship requirement from moving forward while the lawsuit plays out.

She also blocked part of the Republican president’s executive order requiring public assistance enrollees to have their citizenship assessed before getting access to the federal voter registration form.

But she denied other requests from a group of Democratic plaintiffs, including refusing to block Trump’s order to tighten mail ballot deadlines. Also denied in the order was the Democrats’ request to stop Trump from directing the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Government Efficiency to review state voter lists alongside immigration databases.

The judge’s order halts the Trump administration’s efforts to push through a proof-of-citizenship mandate that Republicans have said is needed to restore public confidence in elections. Voting in federal elections by noncitizens is already illegal and can result in felony charges and deportation.

Two groups of nonpartisan organizations and a group of national Democrats had sued to block Trump’s order, calling it unconstitutional. They argued it violates the Constitution’s so-called Elections Clause, which gives states, not the president, the authority to determine how elections are run.

The plaintiffs also argued that Trump’s order asserts power that he does not have over an independent agency. That agency, the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, sets voluntary voting system guidelines and maintains the federal voter registration form.

During an April 17 hearing, attorneys for the plaintiffs had argued that requiring proof of citizenship on the federal voter registration form would complicate their clients’ voter registration drives at grocery stores and other public places.

Aria Branch, counsel for the Democratic National Committee and other Democratic plaintiffs, also argued the executive order’s effort to tighten mail ballot deadlines would irreparably harm her clients by forcing them to reallocate resources to help voters navigate the changes.

“That’s time, money and organizational resources and strategy that can’t be recouped,” she said.

Michael Gates, counsel for the Trump administration, said in the hearing a preliminary injunction wasn’t warranted because the order hadn’t been implemented and a citizenship requirement would not be on the federal voter registration form for many months.

Roman Palomares, national president of one of the nonpartisan plaintiffs in the case, the League of United Latin American Citizens, said Thursday the judge’s decision was a “victory for voters.”

“Efforts to silence the voice and votes of the U.S. electorate must not stand because our democracy depends on all voters feeling confident that they can vote freely and that their vote will be counted accurately,” he said in a statement.

The decision comes as state and local election officials from across the country are meeting to consider the implications of Trump’s executive order on their work.

The U.S. Election Assistance Commission’s Standards Board, which was holding a public hearing in North Carolina on Thursday, is a bipartisan advisory group of election officials from every state that meets annually.

Meanwhile, other lawsuits against Trump’s order are still pending.

In early April, 19 Democratic attorneys general asked the court to reject Trump’s executive order. Washington and Oregon, which both hold all-mail elections, followed with their own lawsuit against the order.

The U.S. differs from many other countries in that it does not hold national elections run by the federal government. Instead, elections are decentralized — overseen by the states and run by thousands of local jurisdictions.

​ Orange County Register 

How Trump tariffs could upend California farms, wine and ports

• April 24, 2025

By Levi Sumagaysay | CalMatters

President Donald Trump’s on-again, off-again tariffs are putting many California businesses, jobs and the state budget at risk. They’re affecting not only long-term relationships with trading partners, but an intricate web of ecosystems and supply chains.

The California business owners and groups grappling with the tariffs — wine shop owners, winery founders, farmers — say the precise effects on their industries are unclear so far. They hope there will be an upside.

But for those who have a broad view of trade, things look grim.

The Port of Los Angeles and the Port of Long Beach, the busiest ports in North America, both saw first-quarter increases in imports, but declines in exports, year over year.

Gene Seroka, executive director for the Port of Los Angeles, attributed the higher volume of cargo being moved to “front-loading as a hedge against tariffs” during a recent media briefing. But he said his port saw year-over-year declines in exports for the fourth month in a row, “raising concerns for our (agriculture) and manufacturing partners as counter-tariffs on exports begin to take effect.”

Seroka — who said companies have been telling him they are holding back on hiring and capital investments — predicted a slowdown in cargo movement beginning in May, and expects a 10% drop in volume from July until next year.  His predictions are already beginning to show up in the port’s import volume.

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Some of that may be due to a decline in Chinese imports. On April 9, Trump raised his tariff on China to 145%, although he later exempted certain electronics, such as laptops and smartphones. China responded on April 12 with 125% tariffs on U.S. products. Chinese goods represent 40% of the imports that pass through the Port of Los Angeles, Seroka said.

A decline in volume will affect port jobs, though he doesn’t anticipate mass layoffs, he said. More than 1.5 million jobs are tied to the two Southern California ports.

The effects of decreased trade will vary for different businesses in the state — even within the same industries.

California wine industry

A wine merchant in Walnut Creek who sells mostly European wines — on which the president has threatened 200% tariffs — said he’s going to have to make adjustments, like carrying more California wines, or consider closing up shop.

“I’d have to think about whether it’s worthwhile staying in business,” said Igor Ivanov, owner of wine shop Vinous Reverie. He added that the tariff issues are just the latest of the wine industry’s woes, which include the fact that people just aren’t drinking as much alcohol as they used to.

On the other hand, increased tariffs on European wine could help boost California wine.

Natalie Collins, president of the California Association of Winegrape Growers, said tariffs on competing wines could help local wine growers.

Bruce Lundquist, co-founder of Rack & Riddle, which he said is the largest custom producer of sparkling wine in the nation, agreed with Collins: “I wish Americans would look at wines grown in their backyard.”

Lundquist said so far Healdsburg-based Rack & Riddle is OK — the company is stocked up on supplies that he orders from different places, both in and out of the country. But he can’t say what his winery and retail clients might be going through. Lundquist worries about tariff uncertainty dragging on, say through next year. “There would have to be a reckoning if this thing were to go on,” he said. “It’s already hard enough to run a winery.”

What’s at stake as the U.S. wine industry grapples with tariffs: $86 billion in annual sales, U.S. Census Bureau data said. California exported $1.3 billion worth of wine in 2022, per the California Department of Food and Agriculture.

Even if the wine produced in this country stays here, tariffs mean winemakers face higher costs on everything from bottles — glass mostly imported from China — to labels and corks, to metal posts and wooden stakes for the vines. As for U.S. wine exports, 95% of those come from California, says Gino DiCaro, spokesperson for the Wine Institute.

And 35% of exports go to Canada, which now has a serious don’t-buy-American, don’t-go-to-America campaign in effect because of the president’s threats about tariffs and annexing Canada.

“(Canadians) are voting with their feet, and there’s a real sense of betrayal and a sense of shock,” said Rana Sarkar, consul general of Canada in San Francisco. “Economic crisis within Canada will no doubt ensue from this, but it will also be deeply painful in the United States.”

California recently became the first state to sue the Trump administration over tariffs. Gov. Gavin Newsom said the tariffs’ trade and geopolitical effects are “outsized,” while Attorney General Rob Bonta said the president bypassed the power of Congress to tax and regulate commerce by declaring a national emergency. California’s lawsuit seeks to pause the tariffs immediately.

But in some cases, the damage is already done. The office of U.S. Rep. Mike Thompson, a Democrat whose district includes Napa’s Wine Country, shared anonymized anecdotes from winery owners and managers, who the congressman’s staff said are afraid to go on the record.

Thompson’s constituents say their Canadian business partners have canceled hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of orders, and that potential sales to Mexico or the European Union are on hold. One medium-size winery in St. Helena told Thompson’s staff that since the tariffs Trump imposed during his first term, it has lost 90% of its business with China and is no longer seeking to sell there: “China has turned to other wine regions across the globe and we believe rebuilding this market will take over 20 years.”

In addition, “the uncertainty itself has had damage, even though we (may not) get the tariffs,” said Daniel Sumner, economics professor and director of the University of California Agricultural Issues Center at UC Davis.

California and other producers of agricultural products want to be able to tell customers they’re reliable suppliers, Sumner said. “But you can’t do that if prices can go up. That’s a real problem,” he said.

Sumner added: “A major concern for any industry is the increased likelihood of a global recession and slower growth in general.” Investment banks and economists have said a recession is likely. Citing Trump’s tariffs, the International Monetary Fund has slashed its forecast for U.S. and global economic growth this year.

Almonds, dairy and other crops

Ryan Talley is vice president of Talley Farms in Arroyo Grande, in San Luis Obispo County, which was started in the 1940s by his grandfather. Now his children are the fourth generation of his family to work for the farm, which grows a few dozen crops.

Talley said his medium-size farm is still able to sell spinach to Canada, but he’s concerned about being able to sell bell peppers to the country, because harvest season for those won’t come until August through November. He hopes the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement will protect those sales — but Trump has threatened tariffs on Canada and Mexico a few times.

Talley Farms’ other crops — including  cabbage, kale, lettuce and corn — are distributed domestically but are highly perishable. Talley said that means it’s tough to adjust operations to any tariffs because of changes to fuel, fertilizing or other supply costs.

“We don’t have months to wait something out,” he said. “We have to continue our operations at the intensity that we currently farm.” He added that “we’re going to have to take those rising prices and deal with it the best we can.”

In addition, Talley worries that one possible effect of tariffs is a glut of domestically grown crops. “If the majority of U.S. farms weren’t able to export their product, everything would stay here, which would completely flood the market and send prices down,” he said. “It would be great for consumers (in terms of prices) but in the end it would hurt the American farmer.”

But Talley’s biggest concern is his farm’s workers, who could be affected by Trump’s stated intent of mass deportations: “I can withstand an increase in fuel prices and fertilizer prices and regulatory burden to an extent. But if you take away my labor overnight, it would be hard for us.”

It’s almost impossible to find a part of California agriculture unaffected by Trump’s tariffs.

Shawna Morris, executive vice president of trade policy at the National Milk Producers Federation, said she is concerned about California’s dairy exports to Mexico, including cheese. The other really big market for California dairy products is China, which has already “pulled the trigger” on retaliatory tariffs, Morris said. California’s dairy exports totaled $3.2 billion in 2022.

California’s biggest export, almonds, had $4.7 billion in foreign sales in 2022. Their longer shelf life is a plus, said almond farmer Jenny Holtermann, in Kern County. “We harvest once a year, then (our processor partners) sell throughout the year,” she said. “The tariffs won’t affect us instantly.”

Holtermann has experience from the tariffs the president imposed during his first term. She would not share specific numbers for her own farm — which has also been in her family for four generations — but acknowledged those tariffs hurt the almond industry, which is “just now starting to rebound.”

Almond growers saw their prices drop from $2.50 a pound to $1.40 a pound after Trump’s tariffs in 2018, according to research from the University of California Giannini Foundation of Agricultural Economics.

Holtermann said farmers’ costs have only gone up, so her farm has adjusted by using less fertilizer, buying fewer tractors or letting trucks run a little longer before replacing them.

But she said she thinks the president’s tariffs are part of “a long-game approach… to get our country back to the economic powerhouse we’re supposed to be.”

Besides, Holtermann is counting on a couple of things. One is California almonds’ dominance: The state produces 80% of the world’s almonds, says the Almond Alliance.

The other thing she’s hoping for is another possible federal bailout, which reportedly has been discussed by the Trump administration. During the Trump 1.0 trade war, the federal government provided farmers with “market facilitation funds” of $23 billion to try to offset the business they lost as a result of China’s retaliatory tariffs on the United States, the Government Accountability Office said in a 2021 report.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has not responded to CalMatters’ questions.

Those funds helped her farm last time, Holtermann said, so she’s hoping for more of the same. “I do know he supports agriculture,” she said of the president. “He’s had a lot of meetings with agriculture organizations.”

Still, she expects to take a short-term hit from tariffs this time around, including losing business from certain countries. “I’m not naive,” Holtermann said. “I’m sure we will miss a portion of that market share.”

But Shannon Douglass, president of the California Farm Bureau, is concerned about getting global buyers to return once they switch to other sources. “We know the last round, almonds and pistachios saw a 20% drop in exports,” she said. “Once they have moved it can take a long time to get those markets back.”

​ Orange County Register