Sparks re-sign Nneka Ogwumike, their ‘top free agency priority’

• February 24, 2023

LOS ANGELES — Seven-time All-Star and 2016 WNBA MVP Nneka Ogwumike has re-signed with the Sparks, the team announced Friday.

The 6-foot-2 forward, who was an unrestricted free agent, returns for her 12th season in the league, all in Los Angeles after the Sparks drafted her No. 1 overall in 2012.

“I started in Los Angeles as a wide-eyed rookie hopeful to last and to lead in a city and with a franchise defined by its legends and legacy,” said Ogwumike said via a press release. “Over the last 11 years, with champions and with challenges, my veteran vision remains clear and committed to what it truly means to play in this league, in THIS city, for 12 seasons, repping that iconic purple & gold.”

Ogwumike, 32, also serves as president of the WNBPA, representing the league’s 144 players in contract negotiations, grievances, and social actions.

The Sparks front office and coaching staff were steadfast in their pursuit of re-signing Ogwumike, which came two days after her younger sister Chiney re-signed with the Sparks.

“Re-signing Nneka was the top priority of 2023 free agency for the Los Angeles Sparks,” Sparks CAO & GM Karen Bryant said in the team’s statement. “Nneka is deeply ingrained in the rich history of the Sparks and is both an elite basketball player and a trailblazer for our league and beyond. We’re thrilled to continue our partnership with her as she continues adding to her storied legacy.”

“Nneka is an extraordinary person and teammate,” Sparks head coach Curt Miller added. “Not only is she a top-level leader for the Sparks, but she is a leader for the entire league. Her work ethic and dedication to her craft is exceptional. She’s coming off another All-WNBA season and continues to add levels to her game. I couldn’t be more excited to coach Nneka.”

The former WNBA Rookie of the Year was a key member of the Sparks’ 2016 WNBA championship team. Since winning that title, she has remained one of the most efficient players in the league.

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Last season, Ogwumike started and played in 34 of 36 games, averaging 18.1 points, 6.6 rebounds, 2.0 assists and 1.6 steals in 34.1 minutes per game.

Ogwumike also cemented her legacy in Los Angeles last season by eclipsing 5,000 career points, joining Sparks legends Lisa Leslie and Candace Parker as the only players in franchise history to do so. She was also named to the ‘The W25’, recognizing her as one of the 25 greatest players to ever play in the league.

​ Orange County Register 

Southern California coast battered by rain, wind

• February 24, 2023

Southern California’s beaches will look a little different this weekend — with high waves, rip currents and possibly even water spouts.

It was shaping up to be a remarkably cold and wet day along the coast on Friday, Feb. 24, as it is caught up in the winter storm moving through the region.

Southern California coast battered by rain, wind

The National Weather Service forecasts wind gusts of 40-plus mph, and waves up to seven feet tall today through Saturday, Feb. 25. Strong rip currents and very high surf are expected as well, with a small chance for water spouts. A possible water spout was spotted in Dana Point on Thursday.

Temperatures were mostly in the low 40s and mid-50s.

In Newport Beach on Friday, lifeguards reported three-foot surf and strong rip currents.

“The bulk of the activity occurring today so far has been up north in Los Angeles and Ventura (counties),” said Elizabeth Schenk, a National Weather Service forecaster. “We’re going to see shower activity increase through this afternoon, and then the heaviest activity will hold off until late tonight and early tomorrow.”

The biggest impact of the weather along local beaches will be gusty winds and heavy rain with potential thunderstorms sprinkled in.

The National Weather Service has a bit of advice for anyone thinking of taking a boat out today — don’t.

“This is going to be very hazardous for all marine craft,” Schenk said.

​ Orange County Register 

Here’s how the earthquakes in Asia compare to California

• February 24, 2023

Fault facts

A 6.4 magnitude earthquake struck in the southeastern Turkish province of Hatay Monday, just two weeks after a deadly 7.7 earthquake struck southeastern Turkey and northern Syria on Feb. 6. Today we look at devastating earthquakes around the globe.

To date, some 47,000 fatalities have been recorded in Syria and Turkey, with the death toll still expected to rise.

The Ring of Fire, also called the Circum-Pacific belt, is the zone of earthquakes surrounding the Pacific Ocean — and about 90% of the world’s earthquakes occur here.

The next most seismic region (5%-6% of earthquakes) is the Alpide belt, which extends from the Mediterranean region eastward through Turkey, Iran and northern India.

Earthquake size is measured over an extremely broad range of scales that can be difficult to articulate and equally difficult to envision. Measured by its seismic moment, a magnitude-9 earthquake is 1,000 times bigger than a magnitude-7 earthquake and 1 million times bigger than a magnitude-5.

Some fault line facts from the USGSThe San Andreas Fault is not a single, continuous fault, but rather is actually a fault zone made up of many segments. Movement may occur along any of the many fault segments along the zone at any time. The San Andreas Fault system is more than 800 miles long — and in some spots is as much as 10 miles deep.

The average rate of motion across the San Andreas fault zone during the past 3 million years is 2 inches per year. This is about the same rate at which your fingernails grow. Assuming this rate continues, scientists project that Los Angeles and San Francisco will be adjacent to one another in approximately 15 million years.

The earliest reported earthquake in California was felt in 1769 by the exploring expedition of Gaspar de Portola while the group was camping about 30 miles southeast of Los Angeles.

The epicenter of an earthquake is the location directly above the hypocenter on the surface of the earth.

The hypocenter of an earthquake is the location beneath the earth’s surface where the rupture of the fault begins.

Whole lot of shakingIt is estimated that there are 500,000 detectable earthquakes in the world each year. About 100,000 of those can be felt. and 100 of them cause damage.

Each year, Southern California has about 10,000 earthquakes. Most of them are so small that they are not felt. Only several hundred are greater than magnitude 3.0 and only about 15 to 20 are greater than magnitude 4.0. If there is a large earthquake, however, the aftershock sequence will produce many more earthquakes of all magnitudes for many months.

The world’s deadliest recorded earthquake occurred in 1556 in central China. It struck a region where most people lived in caves carved from soft rock. These dwellings collapsed during the earthquake, killing an estimated 830,000 people. In 1976, another deadly earthquake struck in Tangshan, China, where more than 250,000 people were killed.

Florida and North Dakota have the smallest number of earthquakes in the U.S. Alaska is the most earthquake-prone state and experiences a magnitude-7 earthquake almost every year, and a magnitude-8 or greater earthquake on average every 14 years.

Sources: California Department of Insurance, California Earthquake Authority, USGS, Southern California Earthquake Center, ShakeOut.org, California Department of Conservation

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​ Orange County Register 

6 healthy strategies to help with emotional eating

• February 24, 2023

Emotional eating is the act of eating as a way to cope with feelings, provide emotional comfort or stress relief, not just to satisfy physical hunger. Emotional eating and other unhealthy eating behaviors resulting from stress are relatively common, but also quite complex. Unfortunately, emotional eating can lead to undesirable consequences including poor diet quality, negative feelings and unintentional weight gain. Breaking emotional eating patterns involves learning healthy coping skills to deal with unpleasant feelings and stress. Extreme and restrictive diets are not the answer to emotional eating.

According to the American Psychological Association, 27 percent of adults report eating to manage stress and about one-third of those who report overeating or eating unhealthy foods due to stress describe this behavior as a habit. Food can serve as a distraction or reward for dealing with stress. Emotional eating can result from boredom, sadness and other feelings.

Emotional eating is often associated with consumption of hyper-palatable energy-dense foods. Hyper-palatable foods have a specific combination of fat, sugar, sodium and carbohydrates that make them both enjoyable to eat as well as calorically dense. The typical American diet is full of examples of hyper-palatable foods such as potato chips, hot dogs, pizza, ice cream and brownies.

Unfortunately, emotional eating can be a vicious cycle. Overeating hyper-palatable and calorie-dense foods and excess eating when not physically hungry can result in unintended weight gain. Weight gain can lead to food restriction and dieting, which results in additional emotional burden and negative feelings. Half of adults report that emotional eating leads to disappointment and feeling bad about their bodies.

While some folks believe that a diet is the first step to tackling emotional eating, the best success will likely come from a multi-pronged approach. Here are some strategies to help with emotional eating:

Seek the support you need. Whether it’s a therapist, friend, family member or a support group, lean on others who can listen openly and offer the support you need.

Practice healthy stress management techniques. Stress can be a significant contributor to emotional eating. Activities such as meditation, deep breathing, yoga, journaling or taking a walk can help tame stress.

Create a balanced meal plan. Plan meals using nutrient-rich ingredients like fish and lean poultry, whole grains, beans, fruit and vegetables. Avoid skipping meals or waiting too long in between meals.

Use mindful eating strategies. Avoid eating while watching screens. Serve meals and snacks on plates, eat slowly and engage your senses to enhance mindfulness of eating habits.

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Swap out hyper-palatable foods for more whole foods. Hyper-palatable foods are highly associated with excess calorie consumption. Instead, opt for lower-calorie foods that are surprisingly satisfying such as leafy greens and other vegetables, berries, low-fat dairy products, egg whites, fish, high-fiber whole grains and broth-based soups.

Be patient and remember that changing habits takes time. Emotional eating habits often develop over long periods of time, possibly stemming from adolescence or even earlier. Stopping the cycle of emotional eating will require forming new, healthy strategies for dealing with stress and emotions.

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

​ Orange County Register 

Let the press back into jails and prisons

• February 24, 2023

Few of us are experts on incarceration.

But we are the ones who pay for it. Who, nominally, at least, have hopes for it. That it keeps us safer. That it treats with some kind of dignity those who through either deep faults of their own or, as they say, extenuating circumstances, get caught up in it.

Shouldn’t we, the citizens and taxpayers, have the maximum opportunities to know how our jails and prisons are working?

For those of us who don’t spend a lot of time ourselves under the roof of The Big House, excellent journalism surely offers us the best way to get a good picture of life for prisoners.

As NPR host Ailsa Chang remarked the other day in a radio story about American prisons: “Something the lawyer and activist Bryan Stevenson said really stuck with me. He was talking about how if a society is going to incarcerate children, it should believe in their ability to change.”

And how can we hope to understand what, for instance, life is like for incarcerated children unless we allow reporters into our penal system to find out?

That’s why we stand in support of the California News Publishers Association and the California Broadcasters Association and Senate Bill 254, which would reopen access to the state’s prisons to the media.

We say “reopen” because the concept of allowing reporters more access to prisons and the imprisoned is not new — all this bill would do is bring us back the abilities we in the press had in our state until the mid-1990s.

State Sen. Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, who introduced the bill, also touts it as a move that would “open access to prisons for state legislators and other state officials in order to provide policymakers with the information they need for effective oversight.”

SB 254, which would also apply to local jails, “would also bring California back up to par with other states that provide both the media and public officials with greater access to their prisons, including Maine, Florida, and Rhode Island,” according to Skinner.

Access for reporters and lawmakers seems like a no-brainer to those who believe in the free flow of information. But to the governor and others during the “tough-on-crime” era of the mid-1990s, knowledge was not power. They saw the media telling what life was really like for prisoners as encouraging do-gooders to make life more cush for everyone from hardened convicts to short-timer jailbirds.

And they didn’t think that living the lush life was what doing time was meant to be.

So for almost 30 years state correctional authorities have had the ability to keep reporters out of prisons almost entirely through some of the strictest regulations in the country. We just don’t know what life is like inside without being able to talk to those who are there, and see for ourselves.

And it’s not as if the press associations with the help of legislators haven’t tried to get the onerous restrictions lifted. “Since 1998, there have been nine attempts by the Legislature to roll back CDCR’s 1996 regulations and restore media access to prisons. The Legislature passed all nine bills between 1998 and 2012, and each time the then-governors vetoed the legislation,” Skinners office reports. “SB 254 would be the Legislature’s 10th attempt at restoring media access to prisons. SB 254 would also apply to city and county jails because state realignment of prisons allowed for tens of thousands of incarcerated people to serve their sentences in local jails.”

The bill would allow reporters to tour prisons and jails and interview incarcerated people during prearranged interviews. It would allow the use video cameras and other recording devices, which are now mostly prohibited. It would prohibit prison and jail officials from monitoring interviews, which obviously could make prisoners reluctant to talk freely. It would protect jailbirds from being punished for participating in a news media interview. And, for the prisoners’ own protection, it would require officials to inform their attorney of record before a prearranged interview.

Pass and sign SB 254 for a more informed, more humane California.

​ Orange County Register 

Blizzard conditions, wet and freezing weather set in across Southern California

• February 24, 2023

Southern California residents awoke to some wild weather on Friday, Feb. 24 as a winter storm settled in along the west coast.

A rare blizzard warning went into effect early this morning for the Los Angeles, Ventura County and San Bernardino mountains. Wrightwood received eight inches of snow, with some areas in Riverside receiving up to five. Even the Hollywood sign and spots in the San Fernando Valley got light dustings of what appeared to be snow on Thursday.

Hazardous conditions will persist across the region on Friday and through the weekend, according to the National Weather Service.

“This is going to be one of the strongest winter storms we’ve seen impact Southern California in years,” said Brian Adams, a National Weather Service forecaster. “Even with all the crazy weather we’ve seen going on so far, it’s about to get crazier.”

Blizzard warning for Southern California mountains is expanded

Rain, and snow in mountain regions, will likely fall with increasing intensity throughout the day. Some areas may see two to five inches of snow — per hour.

Winds are expected to hit hard, too, with gusts of up to 80 miles per hour in the mountains. Los Angeles, Riverside, and San Bernardino are all under wind advisories.

Southern California businesses, residents prepare for powerful incoming storm

The weather will make travel difficult in areas such as the Cajon Pass and the San Bernardino Mountains. The Grapevine was closed Friday morning through the Tejon Pass. Caltrans did not have an estimate for when it would reopen.

Highway 2 through Angeles National Forest was also closed in some areas after heavy snowfall.

Rainfall was heavy in spots overnight: In Los Angeles, Bel Air collected 0.91 inches.

On Thursday, a record was set at Los Angeles International Airport — the high was 41 degrees, tying the 2019 record for lowest high temperature on a Feb. 23.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

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​ Orange County Register 

DK Nnuro’s novel ‘What Napoleon Could Not Do’ explores a family’s immigration saga

• February 24, 2023

DK Nnuro’s novel “What Napoleon Could Not Do” opens with a divorce ceremony, which, in Ghana, is a custom when two families dissolve the marriage bond.

But neither half of the fracturing couple, Jacob and Patricia, are there. The couple, whose relationship had been limited to letters, FaceTime and other modern communications have never even met – Patricia has been working in the United States for years and Jacob has been unable to gain entry there, a source of frustration and shame. When they’d married, Patricia was represented by a relative holding a photo.

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Though she lacks a green card, Jacob’s sister, Belinda, lives in Houston and is the family’s star, having fulfilled her destiny by conquering a foreign land – the book’s title comes from her widowed father’s acclaim for her achievement. She married into great wealth and supplies the family, which includes another brother Robert and his family, with much of what they have. 

Belinda’s husband, Wilder Thomas, is a generation older than her; raised with wealth and education in Texas, he came of age in the Jim Crow era and spent years in Vietnam and Laos during the war. Despite his worldly successes, he is openly bitter about America – or more specifically, White America. 

Nnuro, who spoke recently by video, was born in Ghana but came to America as a boy and graduated from Johns Hopkins University and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. He still lives in Iowa City.

The novel is filled with richly described incidents: a fabulously ostentatious Washington D.C. wedding, American attacks on Laos from the point-of-view of the Laotians, and a tragic car crash in Ghana. But it’s also a character study of Jacob, Belinda and Wilder, exploring the impact of heartbreak, shame and guilt that works on each of them. And it’s about their differing views of America and how each contrasts with the reality confronting them. 

The book is big-hearted but unflinching toward its characters. “Oh my god, I love my characters,” Nnuro says. In fact, when referring to Robert saying, “Jacob was begotten feckless,” Nnuro says, with a chuckle, “Of course, he would put it that way,” as if discussing an old friend, not a fictional character he created.

“Your characters will tell you what should become of them,” he says. 

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

Q. The characters have certain dreams about and expectations of America. Do Americans understand our country’s cultural and political influence and how it shapes potential immigrants? 

I don’t think Americans really understand fully how the culture influences the rest of the world and creates the myth of what America is. There’s a way America occupies the imagination.

Ghanians have a certain appreciation of the US because of the ambassadorial nature of US movies and goods – compared to what we have in Ghana, it’s just excellence. There’s a sense of the U.S. as almost heaven-like, and that creates a perception of a more welcoming place because only a welcoming place would be so generous with spreading the best of its culture all over the world. That’s how Africans interpret it. But in truth, it’s not always like that, so a lot of us Africans think of America as more welcoming than it really is. 

Q. For all their struggles here, Belinda and Patricia aren’t as negative about America as Wilder. Some of that is age and geography — he’s a generation older and grew up in the South — but some of that is being a Black American versus being an immigrant. Was that difference an inspiration for your writing?

Yes. I always refer to this quote from the writer Jelani Cobb, where he quibbles with the term “African-American” and says the hyphen should be replaced with an ellipsis because of the enduring tensions between immigrants from Africa and Black Americans. 

In Ghana, there’s persistent inconvenience; you can’t get anything done. The mere fact that in America you’re guaranteed something as simple as electricity all day is enough for African immigrants to overlook the enduring racism that exists in this country. At the end of the day, there is light … literally. 

Q. You came here in 1998 at age 11. Would your own perceptions have been different if you’d come as an adult?

My experience was complicated by the fact that I am a mama’s boy and my mother stayed in Ghana. So I came here with a great deal of pain and it took me a few years to overcome that. It was then that I really started to experience all the other pains America could possibly inflict on Black bodies. 

I didn’t have the term “microaggressions” then, but later I realized I’d experienced a great deal of them. I couldn’t have survived America if I had not kept one foot firmly placed in Ghana, which meant going back often. But there, I was constantly exposed to the inconveniences. This cognitive dissonance was always at play in me. America is a racist nation, but we have light all the time. There’s also that luxury of being able to go home – let the Americans be mean to you, but when Christmas rolls around you can go home and escape.

Had I come at a much older age, I don’t know if I would have paid enough attention to the racism to be able to write about it. Ghanian immigrants who come later are coming for survival, to make money and that is their focus. If they experience microaggressions or racism, then so be it. As Patricia tells Belinda, she doesn’t have time to pay attention and to intellectualize things. 

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For a lot of African immigrants, 2020 [George Floyd’s murder and the protests that followed] was as much a revelation for them as it was for White Americans.

Q. Wilder is the one American-born Black character and his section is much longer than Jacob’s and Belinda’s. Were you planning that or did it happen in the aftermath of 2020? 

As much as 2020 was an inflection point for America, for me as a novelist, it was Donald Trump and Charlottesville. I finished the first draft in 2019 and it was 550 pages so when I cut, a lot was from Belinda’s section and I barely cut from Wilder’s. The inherent racism and the way that, unfortunately, the sense that when this country takes a step forward, it takes two steps back, that dance has always been there. When I started this in 2016, it was Trump and then Charlottesville that informed Wilder’s section and the complexities of his character and his grievances against America. 

​ Orange County Register 

How Orange County became a refuge for Ukrainians fleeing war with Russia

• February 24, 2023

In a quiet, gated community in Dana Point, a Ukrainian flag flies atop one of the houses. Inside, 9-year-old Arsenii and 7-year-old Mark play while their mothers Maria Kobylianska and Liudmyla Maksymenko sit at the dining table sipping coffee and nibbling on Ukrainian cookies.

Maksymenko is a refugee from Ukraine who came to the U.S. in June with her son, Arsenii. She’s become fast friends with Kobylianska, a Ukrainian American, and is grateful for the community Kobylianska has created for refugees fleeing the Russia-Ukraine war.

When Kobylianska moved to Dana Point from Chicago in December 2021, she joined the Facebook group “Ukrainians in Orange County” with around 600 members. However, she said, it was “super sleepy.” Whenever she posed a question to the group, no one would answer for 2-3 months.

Then, on Feb. 24, 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine.

“When the war started, it exploded,” said Kobylianska of the Facebook group.

It became a space for Ukrainians living in Orange County to discuss the war, ask questions and — as refugees started coming in — organize help. In the last year, the member count has ballooned to about 2,500.

Maksymenko, who now lives in Laguna Niguel, was one of the refugees who relied on the group to help her navigate life in the U.S.

With the constant sirens and the exploding rockets traumatizing her son, she made the decision to leave Ukraine. She left her husband and family behind in Uman (a town between Kyiv, the capital, and Odesa, a port city and one of the early targets in the war) and traveled to the U.S. through Poland with her only son in June.

“I cried a lot, and my son, I have never seen him cry, but he cried,” Maksymenko said. “I knew that it was not going to be for a week or two. I wasn’t going to see my family for a long time.”

Maksymenko and her son first moved in with a host family in San Juan Capistrano through the United for Ukraine program. Launched by the federal government last year, it allows Ukrainian citizens fleeing the war to come to the U.S. for a temporary 2-year period. While the program is renewable at the end of those two years, it is not a pathway to citizenship.

“When we came, I saw that my son was suffering from a lack of communication with Ukrainians because everyone was speaking in English,” she said.

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During that “difficult and stressful” time, Maksymenko’s host family helped her find a summer camp for Ukrainian children run out of R.H. Dana Elementary School. The camp was started by Kobylianska.

In May, Kobylianska began the process of bringing her parents to the U.S. to live with her, but she was worried they would be bored. At the same time, she noticed an influx of Ukrainian refugees asking questions in the Facebook group about Ukrainian schools or classes meant for children.

A summer camp was the answer.

When her parents moved to Dana Point, they helped run the camp — after all, Kobylianska’s mother was a teacher for 40 years in Ukraine — and Ukrainian children who had just moved to Orange County found community. The nonprofit Ukrainian American Coordinating Council helped her set up the camp under its umbrella so she could use its 501(c)(3) status, and the RH Dana Elementary School provided a space.

Even her son, Mark, practiced speaking in his parents’ native language.

“(The camp) was a relief for me and a relief for my son,” said Maksymenko.

For just under two months, around 12 children between 5-12 years old spent their days doing art projects, learning chess, practicing the Ukrainian language and conducting science experiments.

At the last class for the summer, the parents and children, Kobylianska said, came together, “They said we need to start it again, and we need to get together and do a school.”

Kobylianska and Maksymenko had become friends by then. And since Maksymenko used to run a school in Ukraine, she planned to join Kobylianska’s mother in teaching.

“We just had to find a place,” Kobylianska said.

The elementary school was not an option as it required expensive custodian fees to use a space on weekends. After having classes temporarily at the Dana Point Senior Center, Kobylianska found a permanent space: a classroom at the Gloria Dei Lutheran Church in Dana Point used for English as second language classes.

The school, for children between 3 -11 years old, is run on Saturdays from 1:30-4:30 p.m., with three classes: Ukrainian language, art and history. Students, over the age of 11, also have the option of enrolling in programming classes and those older than 6 can sign up for traditional Ukrainian dance classes run at the Dana Point Senior Center.

All of the teachers are volunteers and most are refugees from Ukraine, including Maksymenko and Kobylianska’s mother, Nataliia Kobylianska.

“America is a fantastic country,” said Nataliia Kobylianska in Ukrainian. But she still misses her home. In her small town of Kolomyia, everyone knew her and would greet her when she walked on the streets. She misses visiting with her friends and neighbors.

“I miss the sweet water of the well,” said Nataliia Kobylianska.

Nataliia Kobylianska still remembers the day the war started: The former military airport in her town was bombed.

“Everybody was scared, you couldn’t find any people outside,” she said.

The night before, she had watched Russian President Vladimir Putin’s address, when he said he had “no other option” but to launch a military operation, advocating for the “demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine.” That night, Nataliia Kobylianska realized the invasion was going to be “something terrible,” she said, her eyes red welling up with tears.

“Ukraine will stand. Ukraine will win,” said Nataliia Kobylianska.

The three women will mark one year since the Russia-Ukraine war began at the “365 Days Defending Freedom” event at Kaleidoscope Union Market in Mission Viejo, organized by the Ukrainian American Coordinating Council, on Friday, Feb. 24 from 7-11 p.m. The event will also feature an auction to raise funds for Ukrainian defenders on the front lines.

Tickets are priced between $10-$25 and are available on its Eventbrite page.

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​ Orange County Register