Le Journal

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Is there anyone who doesn’t love magic? You know you’re being tricked; but try as you might, you can’t figure out how. The only thing you can do is laugh and enjoy it. The Oakland Magic Circle was founded on July 25, 1925, by, among others, Alfred J. Battle, above, who performed under the stage name “Professor El-Tab.” (photo courtesy of Byron Walker) Magicians have been delighting Oaklanders for more than a hundred years, when the Oakland Magic Circle was founded on July 25, 1925, by Lloyd E. Jones, Blue W. Williams and Alfred J. Battle, who performed under the stage name “Professor El-Tab.” “That’s his name spelled backwards, dropping a T,” says the club’s oldest member, Castro Valley’s Byron Walker, 91, who learned the magic arts from Jones himself and now owns his huge collection of magic books and tricks. “The basic principle of magic is misdirection,” he explains. “People will look where you look and where there’s motion, so if you want to make people look at your left hand, look at it yourself and keep it moving while your right hand does the dirty work.” There are many magic clubs in the area, and on Feb. 3 the Oakland Magic Circle will host its annual Northern California Interclub Stage Dinner and Pasta Fest at the Scottish Rite Center on Oakland’s Lakeside Drive. The clubs are sending the winners of their own contests to compete and be judged by a panel of pros. The top three will get cash prizes, bragging rights and, for the first-place winner, a trophy and a spot in the Magic Circle’s other big event of the year, the September Gala. Among the host club’s contestants will be its new president, Michael Nguyen. “I’m known as a ‘manipulator,’ ” he says. “I perform silently, like a dance; and using choreography and the rhythm of the music, I perform sleight-of-hand using small objects like cards, rubber balls and coins. A lot of it is pulling things out of thin air: stacks of cards, make it vanish, make cards bigger or smaller. It’s a beautiful form of magic. “The best part of manipulation magic is that it transcends language barriers. I can perform for anybody, including one of my high school teachers. He sliced his legs in class; and while we were at the hospital waiting for him to get a bed, I performed some magic tricks to distract him from his pain. Last Saturday, he finally got to see me perform on stage for the first time.” Meriam Al-Sultan does another kind of magic: close-up. “Small objects, like cards or coins, at a table surrounded by people. I can also tell you what you’re thinking of. If it’s an animal, I’ll show you an empty shoe box and a deflated balloon, then I’ll put the balloon in the box and close it. When we open it again, the balloon is inflated, and written on it is the word ‘animal.’ The audience don’t really want to know how it’s done. It’s magic!” Her love of magic is obvious despite the blocks that were placed in her way when she was growing up in Saudi Arabia. “Women had to cover their faces to drive a car. A man had to drive me to work, and I couldn’t perform on stage, period. Even the male magicians had to go through a lot of loops. They actually had to sit down with a religious cleric and explain how each trick is done before they were allowed to perform.” She moved here 12 years ago and now has a daughter of her own who laughs excitedly when her mom reaches behind her ear and pulls out a piece of candy. “Her real favorite is playing cards, though. She’s fascinated by them for some reason.” Finally, San Leandro’s Parry Yan is a sleight-of-hand artist who keeps sharp by practicing his technique for 45 minutes each day. “It’s still not where I want it to be, even though I’ve been doing this for 15 years. The magician’s job is to be foolproof. You want astonishment with every trick.” His advice for newbies: Save your best stuff for first and last. “Start off your routine with such strong tricks that if you mess up in the middle the audience will forgive you. Then I try to sneak in a couple…

Santa Clara County has paid $5.5 million to settle a lawsuit over its former chief pediatrician for foster kids, a one-time foster and adoptive parent accused of sexually abusing a boy in his care, according to his lawyer. The settlement agreement between the county and the former foster youth, a Northern California resident now in his 30s, is the first time the county has paid damages to one of Dr. Patrick Clyne’s accusers — and attorneys say more lawsuits are imminent. The settlement marks a major reckoning for Santa Clara County’s child-welfare and public-health systems, which court records show were repeatedly warned for years that children in Clyne’s care were being abused — yet continued to employ him, place foster children in his home and allow him to examine young patients. Wyatt Vespermann, one of the lawyers who represented the former foster youth, confirmed terms of the settlement, which a county document shows was paid in September. Santa Clara County officials would say only that “the settlement was properly authorized.” Related Articles San Jose authorities searching for missing 80-year-old man After ICE killing, Bay Area DAs question whether federal agents can be held to account Vacant Mountain View building red-tagged after transients start fire, police say San Jose police arrest man in rash of vehicle burglaries Teen arrested in shooting that injured one at Story Road shop Clyne, 64, has denied wrongdoing and has not been charged with any crime related to the allegations. Dozens of children in foster care and multiple boys who lived in Clyne’s home when he was a licensed foster parent have accused him of sexual abuse, and he has been the subject of criminal investigations dating back to 2001. The former foster youth said preparing his case took a tremendous toll on him. “It is a very hard thing to stand up for yourself in my situation,” he said in a recent Instagram post. “But through perseverance and searching for some form of justice, I can sleep a little easier knowing I have made an impact against the evil that is out there.” The case against Santa Clara County was filed in Superior Court in 2020 — decades after the former foster youth made repeated reports to authorities about the abuse he said he suffered in Clyne’s home, including to police, a probation officer, his mother and a criminal grand jury. Court documents show Santa Clara County is planning to pursue a separate civil action against Clyne to establish that he “was the legal cause of any injuries and damages sustained by” the former foster youth. The youth was placed in Clyne’s South Bay home in 1995 after being removed from his mother. A fourth grader at the time, he was one of several boys who lived with Clyne — a rare foster-care doctor who also took in children from the system as a single foster parent. As early as 2001, Santa Clara County social workers, parents, therapists and staff at two residential group homes alleged that children in his care had been abused, according to court records. Abuse allegations resurfaced again in 2009, when at least 10 children ages 8 through 11 told law enforcement officers that Clyne sexually abused them during routine medical examinations, records show. In 2011, the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office notified defense attorneys there was “substantial evidence” that Clyne, who had been a longtime expert witness in child abuse cases, had committed “multiple crimes of moral turpitude, specifically sexual assaults.” Santa Clara County fired Clyne the same year. In 2014, the California Department of Social Services prohibited him from ever serving as a foster parent again and barred him from working with children or adults in state-licensed facilities. In 2011, Clyne told The San Jose Mercury News: “I’ve worked in San Jose for the past 16 years and I’ve never had an interaction with a kid that was inappropriate or unprofessional in those 16 years — or at any time in my life.” He later added:…

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Santa Clara County Executive James Williams sums up the biggest issue facing California’s sixth-largest county in 2026 in three words: “budget, budget, budget.” The past year ushered in a new age of fiscal challenges for the county as President Donald Trump and a Republican-controlled Congress passed legislation last summer that triggered unprecedented cuts to the federal Medicaid program. Known as Medi-Cal in California, the program provides health insurance to low-income and disabled individuals. As the operators of the second-largest county health and hospital system in the state, Trump’s landmark tax-and-spending bill has left a giant hole in Santa Clara County’s growing budget for the coming years. 2025 saw the county act swiftly to respond to the challenge, placing a general sales tax increase on the November ballot to backfill a portion of the lost revenues, which make up roughly a third of the budget. Voters ultimately approved the sales tax increase, which will take effect in April. But the projected $330 million it will raise annually will only plug part of the $1 billion annual gap, placing budget challenges — and health care — at the forefront of the county’s priorities. Williams said in an interview that budget constraints will “tremendously” impact policy decisions the Board of Supervisors might want to pursue this year to ensure that baseline services are preserved. In addition to the fiscal challenges stemming from the federal government’s actions, the county is also impacted by “an extraordinary set of policy challenges” as well, according to Williams. Related Articles Santa Clara County purchases medical office it had planned to lease as it battles lost federal revenues Borenstein: DA Rosen, Mayor Mahan, labor leaders were deceived on sales tax increase they endorsed Santa Clara County brings long-awaited cardiac services to Gilroy, Morgan Hill Santa Clara County Assessor race: Neysa Fligor appears to be headed to victory Election Day: Santa Clara County poised to elect its next assessor “The combination of the two consumes a tremendous amount of our energy because we have a duty to take care of those most in need in our community and to do everything that we can that’s within our control to help ensure that Santa Clara County residents continue to have access to critical services and that Santa Clara County residents continued to be cared for,” he said. The county executive said they plan on innovating locally, advocating for more funding from the state and pursuing litigation where necessary. The county sued the Trump administration nine times in 2025 on a range of executive orders, such as the president’s attempts to revoke birthright citizenship to pulling federal funding from local governments that have deemed themselves as “sanctuaries” for immigrants living in the country illegally. Supervisor Otto Lee, who is the president of the Board of Supervisors, said in an interview its lawsuits against the federal government are critical to protecting both residents’ rights and key funding streams. “It’s one of those things in life that we just have to continue pressing on to make sure that we can sustain our work as a county,” he said. “Without the federal funds, without the state funds, we are not able to do our main core job.” While the budget will dictate many of the county’s policy actions in 2026, Lee — who will be serving as president of the board for the second year — said he would like the county to focus more on emergency preparedness, working more deeply with San Jose officials to tackle the unsheltered homeless crisis and ensuring schools have clean drinking water. Supervisors Sylvia Arenas, who serves as the vice president of the board, said her priorities focus on “building on the momentum of the Latino Health Assessment.” The county released the detailed report last year, which found that while Latinos, who make up one in four residents in the county, often face worse health outcomes than their…