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This month marks the two-year anniversary of the pandemic. Many Americans started to grasp that something serious was happening as U.S. states began to lock down on March 15, 2020. California issued its shelter-in-place order on March 19.

Pardon me for a little of what we used to call a “reporter’s notebook” story. An old truism exists in broadcast journalism that “there’s a story around every corner.” I first learned that in 1996 but, unfortunately, I just learned it again today. Russian bombs and bullets, and Putin’s psychotic ego, have destroyed one of the very few good things to come out of a worldwide disaster 35 years ago.

Years ago, we had a wonderful family plugged into our church. Mom, dad, and two kids - a son and a daughter. One day after our Sunday church service, the husband, whom I will call John, approached my husband for prayer. It seems that his business was slowing down and he desperately needed it to pick up and prosper. So Bob prayed with John for his business to thrive.

There’s nothing like war to hasten the spread of a plague. It’s impossible to maintain handwashing, social distancing and masking in the middle of a siege. The war in the Ukraine makes COVID-19 spikes in the region “inevitable,” writes Alice Park at Time; those surges in turn could provide fertile ground for new variants to emerge.

There are two legal systems in California – one dispenses justice to those who can afford an attorney, the other steamrolls those who can’t.