Sign up below to get Mission Local’s free newsletter , a daily digest of news you won’t find elsewhere. It’s not every day that one sees a dragon rising out of San Francisco’s fog. So when I saw a life-sized dragon puppet suspended from a treehouse in Hayes Valley, I knew I had to meet its maker. I slipped a note through the gate of the nearby Victorian and hoped the rain wouldn’t smudge my handwriting. Edward Winslow, a dad, dancer, and internationally-touring puppeteer of 20 years, responded. Winslow, now 64, had the Bay Area version of a storybook childhood: His mom, Marilyn, owned a toy store in Los Altos called Mud Pie and the Jester’s Eye, where she sold handmade Renaissance Faire toys. Winslow, at 11, would play with their stock of finger puppets, but it wasn’t until he moved to New York in the late 1980s that he picked up his first life-sized puppet. No matter what happens across the country, Mission Local remains your source of in-depth San Francisco reporting . Now, more than ever, we're asking your help to support nonprofit, independent journalism in your community. We have $65,000 in matching gifts — double your donation today! At the time, Winslow was getting his master’s degree at New York University. A broke dance student, he worked odd jobs as a handyman in his spare time. Then, he “got a phone call from a woman in Rockland County who had a desperate need for a puppeteer who could dance.” The audition, Winslow said, lasted 30 seconds. He walked onstage and picked up the “nine-foot-tall hunter puppet” set aside for Hudson Vagabond Puppets’ upcoming production of “Peter and the Wolf.” He started “moving the head and romping around the stage and doing some dance moves.” By this point in the retelling, Winslow has risen from his desk chair and begun re-enacting the performance. “And she was like, ‘Okay, the audition is over,’” he said, sitting back down. Those 30 seconds “rocket started” his puppetry career. Immediately after landing the job, Winslow went on tour with a 14-foot-long trailer full of puppets, performing almost 200 times a year across the country. The company also went abroad — not always comfortably. For three days, Winslow performed in an outdoor stage adaptation of Beatrix Potter’s “The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck” in Chihuahua, Mexico. It was 110 degrees out, and the performers were stuffed inside foam ducks. One character twisted her ankle, and “all she could do was just sit in her nest and look around,” Winslow said, miming a sitting duck. “The show didn’t come back,” he said. “All the puppets were stuck at the border, trying to get back into the United States.” While that show was in English, the company also performed to recordings of Greek translations for a tour of Nicosia, Cyprus, in 2008. “You just kind of flap your mouth and try to memorize it,” Winslow explained. In his two decades with the Hudson Vagabond Puppets, Winslow became a jack of all puppetry trades: Performer, puppet-builder, choreographer and producer. He designed productions for kids from the ground up, putting comedic spins on school curricula or classic literature. He also has an original show concept that has yet to be produced: “Zero: The story of an outer space intergalactic obelisk that makes all the numbers.” “What do you mean, ‘makes all the numbers?’” I asked. “Exactly,” he responded. In Winslow’s imaginary world, all the digits except zero have been created, and the other numbers are having a difficult time without it. Then Zero, who Winslow described as a “non-gender-specific character with a backpack full of nothing,” enters the scene. “You guys gotta lighten your load,” the Zero puppet, described as a Michael Jackson-like “easy, scooty dancer,” would say. “Be like me.” By the end of the show, Winslow imagines, kids in the audience will have learned something about math. In 2011, Winslow left Hudson Vagabond Puppets to move to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, with his two children and now ex-wife. Even there, the puppet world found him. An opera house reached out, saying they needed “a giant teacup” for a production of Maurice Ravel’s “L’enfant et les Sortilèges.” Winslow did them one better. He built a set out of trash — cardboard, bubble wrap, and boxes — that came to life, morphing into a 60-foot-wide moth complete with fishing poles for antennas. “The person that ran the opera company was like, ‘I’ve never seen anything like that before in my life,’” the dancer said. “And neither had I.” In 2014, Winslow moved to San Francisco to manage his sister’s event planning business from her Hayes Valley home (though her scruffy rescue dog, Scuppers, appears to be the real manager of the house). His most recent project involved purchasing a professional paper cutter to construct 60 paper churches for a GLIDE Memorial Church fundraiser. When his sister asked if that was really necessary, Winslow responded, “I’m not okay with being a beginner. I need to be an expert.” He misses the theater. He misses the dance community. He misses the creativity and “thinking big.” But now, he says, being a dad is his priority. When Winslow’s son, Tyler, who is now 17 and applying to colleges, was in 6th grade, students at his elementary school wrote a show about a giant dragon. The former puppeteer offered his services and created “Matilda,” as Winslow’s 14-year-old daughter calls her, installing her on a tree in the family’s backyard. The creature that now adorns (and defends) Ivy Street was born. For us at Mission Local, it brought a realization that while we can still be puzzled by this country and city, we can serve it best by covering it as journalists. Your support allowed us to bring you extensive election coverage in 2024 . Now, regardless of the national results, we’ll be following up on all of the promises that the winning candidates made here in San Francisco. Independent, nonprofit outlets like ours rely on your donations to make this happen. It is how we continue to do our job and expand our coverage every year. And now we are in the crazy period of end-of-year fundraising at an equally crazy political time. We have $65,000 in matching funds. More than 80 readers have already donated to our year-end campaign. Join them by giving today to double your donation. Join more than 1,800 other donors who give to Mission Local. Twitter Instagram YouTube LinkedIn Mastodon
NEW YORK (AP) — Ayden Pereira rushed for 136 yards on 17 carries and threw for a touchdown and Merrimack's defense smothered Fordham 19-3 in a season finale. Jay Thompson had three solo sacks and was credited with four of Merrimack’s 11 sacks. The Rams (2-10) finished with just four first downs and were held to minus-29 yards rushing and 31 total yards offense. The Warriors (5-6) also made two interceptions. Pereira was 12-of-15 passing for 131 yards, connecting with Jalen McDonald for a 12-yard touchdown and a 16-3 lead late in the third quarter. Lliam Davis's field goal made it 19-3 in the fourth quarter. After Kendal Sims blocked a Fordham punt out of the end zone for a safety, Jermaine Corbett went over from a yard out for a 9-0 lead in the first quarter. Bennett Henderson had Fordham's only points with a 43-yard field goal. Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here . AP college football: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-football-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/college-football AP college football: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-football-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/college-football . Sign up for the AP’s college football newsletter: https://apnews.com/cfbtop25Island Health and the Pacific Public Health Foundation (PPHF) are now accepting applications for the Youth Resilience Grants program. Up to $450,000 is available for initiatives aimed at improving mental well-being and building resilience among youth up to age 19 across Vancouver Island. The program, previously known as the Resilience and Safety Grants, is in its third year. It offers grants of up to $50,000 to support new and innovative projects that help youth navigate challenging life events. Existing or ongoing programs are not eligible for funding. Eligible applicants include not-for-profit organizations, schools, Indigenous-led organizations, youth-led groups, parent advisory councils, local governments, and community groups. “These grants are filling a real gap in our system,” said Réka Gustafson, vice-president of Population Health and chief medical health officer at Island Health. “Youth often tell us that what got them through challenging times was their connection [with that] one mentor who made them feel seen or that one program that engaged them when they needed it the most.” The grants focus on projects that promote connections to supportive adults, a sense of belonging within family, community, or school, cultural connections, autonomy, competence, and purpose, as well as social and emotional skills. PPHF, which supports public health initiatives in British Columbia, is contributing funding to the program. Applications are open until Dec. 20. For more information and to apply, visit the Youth Resilience Grants' website at .
Ethereum has been a leader in blockchain innovation, being a foundation of decentralized applications (dApps) and smart contracts. The Ethereum network is going through rapid growth. This growth is resulting in it being bombarded by scalability issues , besides security and user experience challenges. In an attempt to solve the above-mentioned problems and enhance performance, Ethereum 3.0 was introduced by Vitalik Buterin . It promises a 'transformational upgrade' for the network. The completion target for the new upgrade is set in 2026. Ethereum 3.0 will take advantage of the success of the previous version, Ethereum 2.0 while filling the gaps that exist in the present system. It will be released in phases aimed at enhancing Ethereum's scalability, decentralization , and security. Let's explore the main phases that will define Ethereum 3.0 in detail. Sharding will be one of the major features of Ethereum 3.0, which will accelerate scalability. Sharding means splitting the Ethereum blockchain into smaller chains known as ‘shards.’ This will allow Ethereum to process more transactions parallelly and greatly increase its throughput. Ethereum 3.0 aims to increase transactions per second, with a possible figure reaching above 100,000 when combining both the Layer 1 and Layer 2 networks. The new enhancement will solve the network’s existing problems of high gas fees and network congestion during peak period usage. The Scourge phase will solve the problems associated with Maximal Extractable Value (MEV). MEV stands for the miners' ability to reorder transactions within a block to extract maximal value, often from network users. It has been the source of centralisation and unfair prioritisation of transactions under the Ethereum network. The proposed concept of proposer-builder separation, or PBS in Ethereum 3.0, aims at providing the much-needed separation of transactions from their proposers and the ones building the blocks. Thus, making transaction processing more fair by removing miner manipulation risks and further increasing the decentralisation of Ethereum. In the Verge phase, Ethereum 3.0 will mainly focus on reducing the resources required to run nodes. This will make it easier for people to interact with the network as validators. The innovation on stateless verification is also crucial in this phase. It will make it possible for Ethereum to operate with significantly reduced storage requirements through the introduction of Merkle Trees. This change will allow nodes to operate on lower-power devices, including smartphones, making the Ethereum network more accessible. Hence, enabling a more diverse constituency of holders to participate in its consensus mechanism. This phase will also look at streamlining the protocol of Ethereum through the removal of redundant data and is basically going to reduce data bloat. Ethereum has accumulated much data over time, which tends to make it inefficient and slow down the network. Purging the data will make Ethereum more efficient by making the network lighter and faster. This phase will ensure that Ethereum will be efficient, even as its user base and transaction volumes continue to grow. The last phase is the Splurge, which would be an improvement of UX and security. This would prepare the whole Ethereum ecosystem against cyber and phishing attacks . Ethereum will work on EVM to make it strong, safe, and ready for developers and users to work with. These upgrades will also make sure that Ethereum remains adapted to the ever-changing nature of blockchain technology in the world. The community has welcomed Ethereum 3.0 with open arms, with Ethereum researcher Justin Drake teasing ambitious plans for the upgrade. At events such as Devcon, full details for these plans will be unveiled, further fostering excitement about the project. One significant development is sharding, which has picked up momentum due to advancements in zero-knowledge technology. However, there are still skeptics in the Ethereum camp who cannot be swayed by such highly ambitious propositions. The critics have cited that at the current extensive scale of size, changes take a long time to be developed. They point out that most of Ethereum's upgrades have taken considerable periods of time to be done. Similar proposals usually need formal Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs) before they move on, thus, taking longer for the upgrades to become applicable. Despite a lot of competition from other blockchain networks like Solana and BNB Chain, Ethereum keeps leading in terms of on-chain activity and usage of decentralized applications. Success will no longer depend solely on Ethereum upgrades but rather on the future trajectory of the larger blockchain ecosystem. When upgraded successfully, Ethereum 3.0 will optimise and make the network simpler, which will reinforce its status as the leading platform for dApps. Ethereum 3.0 is morphing to be one of the biggest upgrades in blockchain history, promising improvement in scalability, decentralization, and security. There's still a lot to be seen regarding the upgrade’s future. However, the Ethereum community provided a very solid foundation for the success of Ethereum 3.0.
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NEW YORK — Shohei Ohtani won his third Most Valuable Player Award and first in the National League, and Aaron Judge earned his second American League honor on Thursday. Ohtani was a unanimous MVP for the third time, receiving all 30 first-place votes and 420 points in voting by the Baseball Writers' Association of America. New York Mets shortstop Francisco Lindor was second with 263 points and Arizona second baseman Ketel Marte third with 229. Judge was a unanimous pick for the first time. Kansas City shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. got all 30 second-place votes for 270 points, and Yankees outfielder Juan Soto was third with 21 third-place votes and 229 points. Ohtani was unanimously voted the AL MVP in 2021 and 2023 as a two-way star for the Los Angeles Angels and finished second to Judge in 2022 voting. He didn't pitch in 2024 following elbow surgery and signed a record $700 million, 10-year contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers last December. Ohtani joined Frank Robinson for Cincinnati in 1961 and Baltimore in 1966 as the only players to win the MVP award in both leagues. He was the first player to twice become an unanimous MVP. He had combined with Atlanta outfielder Ronald Acuña Jr. in 2023 for the first year both MVPs were unanimous. Ohtani hit .310, stole 59 bases and led the NL with 54 homers and 130 RBIs exclusively as a designated hitter, becoming the first player with 50 or more homers and 50 or more stolen bases in a season. He helped the Dodgers to the World Series title, playing the final three games with a torn labrum in his left shoulder. "The ultimate goal from the beginning was to win a World Series, which we are able to accomplish," he said through a translator. "The next goal is for me to do it again and so right now I'm in the middle of rehab and working out and getting stronger." When Ohtani returns to the mound, could he win MVP and the Cy Young Award in the same year? "That would obviously be great, but right now my focus is just to get to get back healthy, come back stronger, get back on the mound and show everybody what I can do," Ohtani said. Ohtani became the first primary DH to win an MVP in a season that started with the revelation his longtime interpreter and friend, Ippei Mizuhara, had stolen nearly $17 million from the star to fund gambling. Ohtani is the 12th player with three or more MVPs, joining Barry Bonds (seven) and Jimmie Foxx, Joe DiMaggio, Stan Musial, Roy Campanella, Yogi Berra, Mickey Mantle, Mike Schmidt, Alex Rodriguez, Albert Pujols and Mike Trout (three each). Balloting was conducted before the postseason. Judge led the major leagues with 58 homers, 144 RBIs and 133 walks while hitting .322. Witt topped the big leagues with a .332 average, hitting 32 homers with 31 stolen bases and 109 RBIs. Soto batted .288 with 41 homers and 109 RBIs. When Judge won his first MVP award in 2022, he received 28 first-place votes while Ohtani got the other two. Judge had discussed the MVP award with Philadelphia's Bryce Harper, the NL winner in 2015 and '21. "I was telling him, `Man, I'm going to try to catch up to you with these MVPs here, man,'" Judge recalled. "He'd say, hopefully, he could stay a couple ahead of me, which I think he'll do." When Judge won his first MVP award in 2022, he received 28 first-place votes while Ohtani got the other two. He is the Yankees' 22nd MVP winner, four more than any other team. Judge was hitting .207 with six homers and 18 RBIs through April, then batted .352 with 52 homers and 126 RBIs in 127 games. "March and April were not my friend this year." Judge said. "Just keep putting in the work and things are going to change. You can't mope. You can't feel sorry for yourself. Especially in New York, nobody's going to feel sorry for you. So you just got to go out there and put up the numbers?" ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — The St. Petersburg City Council reversed course Thursday on whether to spend more than $23 million to repair the hurricane-shredded roof of the Tampa Bay Rays' ballpark, initially voting narrowly for approval and hours later changing course. The reversal on fixing Tropicana Field came after the council voted to delay consideration of revenue bonds for a proposed new $1.3 billion Rays ballpark. Just two days before, the Pinellas County Commission postponed a vote on its share of the new stadium bonds, leaving that project in limbo. “This is a sad place. I'm really disappointed,” council chair Deborah Figg-Sanders said. “We won’t get there if we keep finding ways we can’t.” The Rays say the lack of progress puts the new stadium plan and the future of Tropicana Field in jeopardy. “I can't say I'm confident about anything,” Rays co-president Brian Auld told the council members. The Trop's translucent fiberglass roof was ripped to pieces on Oct. 9 when Hurricane Milton swept ashore just south of Tampa Bay. There was also significant water damage inside the ballpark, with a city estimate of the total repair costs pegged at $55.7 million. The extensive repairs cannot be finished before the 2026 season, city documents show. The Rays made a deal with the Yankees to play next season at 11,000-seat Steinbrenner Field, New York's spring training home across the bay in Tampa. The initial vote Thursday was to get moving on the roof portion of the repair. Once that's done, crews could begin working on laying down a new baseball field, fixing damaged seating and office areas and a variety of electronic systems — which would require another vote to approve money for the remaining restoration. The subsequent vote reversing funding for the roof repair essentially means the city and Rays must work on an alternative in the coming weeks so that Tropicana Field can possibly be ready for the 2026 season. The city is legally obligated to fix the roof. BRIEFLY PIRATES: Pittsburgh hired Matt Hague as its hitting coach, bringing him back to the team that drafted him in 2008. Hague replaces Andy Haines, who was fired after Pittsburgh finished in the bottom 10 in the majors in every significant statistical category last season, including runs (24th) and home runs (25th), while also striking out a club-record 1,504 times, second-most in the National League behind Colorado. The 39-year-old Hague spent last season as an assistant hitting coach with the Toronto Blue Jays. Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox!10-man Barcelona concedes two late goals in draw at Celta Vigo
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