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Nick Cordero, nominated for Tony as tap-dancing tough guy, dies at 41

NEW YORK, NEW YORK - AUGUST 27: Amanda Kloots and Nick Cordero attend the Beyond Yoga x Amanda Kloots Collaboration Launch Event on August 27, 2019 in New York City. (Photo by Noam Galai/Getty Images for Beyond Yoga)

by Michael Paulson

Shared from the New York Times

 

The Broadway actor’s battle with the coronavirus was followed closely by many as his wife chronicled his experience on social media.

Nick Cordero, a musical theater actor whose intimidating height and effortless charm brought him a series of tough-guy roles on Broadway, died on Sunday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. He was 41.

His death was announced on Instagram by his wife, Amanda Kloots. The couple, who moved from New York to Los Angeles last year, have a 1-year-old son, Elvis.

“My darling husband passed away this morning,” she wrote. “He was surrounded in love by his family, singing and praying as he gently left this earth.”

She did not cite a cause, but he had been hospitalized for three months after contracting the coronavirus.

Mr. Cordero’s experience with the virus, which included weeks in a medically induced coma and the amputation of his right leg, was chronicled by Ms. Kloots on Instagram.

Mr. Cordero’s big break came in 2014, when he played Cheech, a gangster with a fondness for theater and a talent for tap who was the highlight of a musical adaptation of “Bullets Over Broadway.” The role won him a Tony nomination.

“Mr. Cordero never pushes for effect, even when he’s leading a homicidal dance number to ‘’Tain’t Nobody’s Biz-ness if I Do,’” the critic Ben Brantley wrote in his New York Times review. “And somehow, this dopey, mass-murdering thug and the actor playing him stand out as being far more endearingly earnest than anybody else.”

He went on to play the abusive husband of the title character in “Waitress” and a mentoring mobster in “A Bronx Tale.”

“The terrific Mr. Cordero radiates a cool charisma that mixes a surface geniality with shrugging ruthlessness,” the critic Charles Isherwood wrote of “A Bronx Tale” in The Times.

Mr. Cordero fell ill on March 20 with what was initially diagnosed as pneumonia and later as Covid-19, Ms. Kloots said in a series of Instagram posts.

For weeks, he was kept alive with extensive treatment, including the use of a ventilator, dialysis and a specialized heart-lung bypass machine; he endured brief heart stoppage, minor heart attacks and sepsis, Ms. Kloots said, as well as the leg amputation and a tracheotomy.

As he remained unresponsive, she began daily playing a song that he had written, “Live Your Life,” and encouraging others to do so as well.

Many people joined in online, sharing videos of themselves singing and dancing as they tried to encourage his recovery with the hashtag #WakeUpNick. Alumni of musicals including “Waitress,” “Good Vibrations” and “Rock of Ages” recorded online performances for him, as did a group of musicians led by Constantine Maroulis and Steven Van Zandt.

“We sang it to him today, holding his hands,” Ms. Kloots said in her Instagram post announcing his death. She said that as she sang the words “They’ll give you hell but don’t you let them kill your light/Not without a fight” from the song’s final verse, “I smiled because he definitely put up a fight. I will love you forever and always my sweet man.”

The actor Zach Braff, in whose guesthouse Ms. Kloots has been living with her family while Mr. Cordero was hospitalized, said on Twitter: “I have never met a kinder human being. Don’t believe that Covid only claims the elderly and infirm.” Mr. Braff, Mr. Cordero’s co-star in “Bullets Over Broadway,” added, “I am so grateful for the time we had.”

Ms. Kloots’s frequent updates on Instagram, interspersed with short video clips from well-wishers, periodically had encouraging news; on April 24, Ms. Kloots said that Mr. Cordero had two negative Covid-19 tests.

“We think the virus is out of his system, and now we’re just dealing with recovery and getting his body back from all the repercussions of the virus,” she said. And on May 12, she said he had woken up after the lengthy medically induced coma.

But he continued to battle a lung infection, and by May 20 she told her followers that “unfortunately things are going a little downhill at the moment” and asked for prayers.

In recent weeks, he had been able to respond to some communication with his eyes but remained immobile, according to his wife.

Nicholas Eduardo Alberto Cordero was born on Sept. 17, 1978, in Hamilton, Ontario. His parents were both teachers — his father, Eduardo, was originally from Costa Rica, and his mother, Lesley, from Ontario.

A drama kid who performed frequently as an adolescent in shows at school and local theaters, he attended Ryerson University in Toronto to study acting but dropped out to join a band called Love Method.

His professional acting career began with “Tony n’ Tina’s Wedding” in Toronto, followed by a two-year stint working on cruise ships.

In 2007 he moved to New York, and by 2008 the 6-foot-5 performer was starring in a small musical called “The Toxic Avenger,” first in New Jersey, and then Off Broadway.

“Mr. Cordero morphs convincingly from supernerd to slime-dripping hulk, retaining traces of geekery that glimmer appealingly from under the neon-green gunk,” Mr. Isherwood wrote.

After a period of unemployment, he was cast in the national tour of “Rock of Ages,” and then in 2012 he joined the Broadway cast of that long-running show; another stretch of joblessness prompted him to consider a career in real estate.

But then he landed his breakout role in “Bullets Over Broadway.” It was also there that he met Ms. Kloots, who was a dancer in the ensemble.

In Los Angeles this year, he returned to a familiar show reconceived for a new setting, appearing in a bar-based version of “Rock of Ages,” staged in a nightclub.

In a 2014 interview, he reflected on the challenge of finding his way into the roles coming his way.

“The producer kept telling me, ‘Get tough. Get mean. Get angry,’ ” he said. “But I’m a nice guy. I’m Canadian.”

How we learned to love Big Brother

EDITOR’S NOTE

 

Dear Readers,

 

How many of us in the communities where we live understand or know how much freedom we have and how many we lack; and how much are we controlled and spied on? The following investigative journalism article, by James Corbett, sheds light on the subject very deeply, and I am sure you will enjoy it. – Marvin Ramírez

 

by James Corbett

corbettreport.com


May 16, 2020 – “He gazed up at the enormous face. Forty years it had taken him to learn what kind of smile was hidden beneath the dark moustache. O cruel, needless misunderstanding! O stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast! Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.”
― George Orwell, 1984

When I started The Corbett Report in 2007, the idea that governments were watching and listening to everything we do was still wild-eyed conspiracy theory. Oh, sure, the fact that the NSA had been secretly and illegally wiretapping Americans since at least 9/11 was, by that point, mainstream news. But those “revelations” (which themselves were old news to conspiracy realists) were not enough to convince the dyed-in-the-wool coincidence theorists that the government was actively engaged in the electronic surveillance of everyone.

We conspiracy realists could (and did) talk till we were blue in the face about the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act and Stellar Wind and Room 641A. “The NSA is splitting off the internet trunk lines and running them into locked off server rooms, for crying out loud!” we shouted. “What more do you need to know?”

We talked to NSA whistleblowers like William Binney and Russ Tice. We learned about ThinThread and Trailblazer, and how mass collection of everything was ready and waiting to go before 9/11. We learned how the NSA was spying on high-ranking officials within the US government itself, including senior congressional leaders, high-ranking military generals, the entire Supreme Court, and even then-US Senator from Illinois and future President, Barack Obama.

We made note of the mainstream media’s own casual admissions of the power of the deep state’s spying tools. We observed how our phones are listening to us even when they’re “off.” How smart appliances will be used to spy on us in our own homes. How the FBI can go back and listen to a recording of any phone conversation you’ve had at any point in the past, even if you weren’t under surveillance.

“Big Brother is already here!” we warned. “1984 is today!”

And we were laughed at.

Fast forward to 2020, and now no one is laughing. Instead, everyone’s shrugging their shoulders: “Yeah, of course the government is tracking us. They have to! It’s for our own good!”

So what happened?

The turnaround started in 2013. That’s when the public was given another of its phony heroes: Edward Snowden. Finally, here was a real, honest-to-gosh whistleblower spilling the beans and sharing the documents that proved that the NSA was . . . collecting metadata?

Yes, our wise and crusading Hero For Truth Snowden shined a light on the real problem with Big Brother: He isn’t filling out the right paperwork, or using the right legal mumbo jumbo to justify his spying. And so this “whistleblower” (who washed out of special forces training and worked for the CIA before becoming a super-duper computer god with access to the NSA’s internal network while he was in his 20s, somehow) just wanted to bring this spying to light so we could have a “conversation” about it!

(Oh, and don’t worry, guys: Snowden says there’s nothing to any of that silly 9/11 conspiracy stuff or to chemtrails or aliens or any other crazy theory, so you don’t have to bother thinking about them anymore, OK?)

Hearing his reassurances was actually something of a relief, even for the people who barked about how Snowden’s irresponsible actions had endangered American lives blah blah blah. Because, you see, now we could stop doing all that doublethink about government spying. Of course, the government is spying on us! . . . But maybe that’s a good thing. At any rate, it’s a debate we should be having. How much spying is too much? I mean, there is a terror threat, after all, and we want to get the bad guys, right? And you don’t have anything to hide, do you?

And so we admitted there is a Big Brother.

But that wasn’t enough for Big Brother. Oh no, you can’t just be aware of what Big Brother is doing. You can’t just tolerate Big Brother’s actions. You also must learn to love Big Brother.

Then China caught a cold. And so did Europe. And New York City. And—sure, why not—the rest of the world did, too. Maybe not in that order. Or maybe not at all. Don’t fret about the details. The important thing is that (say it with me) nothing will ever be the same again.

You will never again be able to leave your house without thinking about the mortal danger that each and every physical interaction with every human being on earth poses.

What? Get within six feet of someone? . . . Without a mask on? Are you nuts?

Oh, if only someone could save us from this dreaded scourge!

But wait . . . Whatever happened to that Big Brother guy? Can’t he find out everywhere we’ve been? And everyone we’ve been in contact with? And if someone gets sick, can’t he just go back and force everyone in that chain of connection into quarantine? Hey, it worked in Korea! Problem solved, right?

And so it was that “contact tracing” was born. And it spread to Canada and Australia and India and the UK and (you guessed it) everywhere else, too.

What? The contact tracing apps don’t actually work unless a “critical mass” adopts them? Well, then, just make them mandatory! After all, what kind of weirdo doesn’t walk around with a phone surgically attached at all times, anyway?

I want professional health care providers (and professional contact tracers and government employees and big tech companies and their subcontractors and app developers and extortionware makers and hackers and everyone else in the world) to know where I’ve been, who I’ve been talking to, what I’ve been buying and doing, and when I’ve been buying it and doing it!

I want to be spied on, dammit! It’s for my own good!

And that, my friends, is how we won the victory over ourselves. We love Big Brother now.

Now is the time to shine a light on police brutality in Mexico

NOTE FROM THE EDITOR:

 

After the death of George Floyd in the hands of the police, a push to defund the police has been filling up the headlines of the mainstream media while encouraging violent demonstrations around the country.

I would say defund the (municipal) police, and fund the (county or parish) Sheriff instead.

If you didn’t know, the Sheriff is the only constitutional, and the higher law enforcement agency in the counties – even with more power than the feds.

The Sheriff is elected by the people, by popular vote. Every Chief of Police is appointed by a municipal Mayor, as are the federal directors of the FBI, ATF and CIA – a political appointment, and serves to the interests of the banking elite and not the people.

 

— “Justices Rule Police Do Not Have a Constitutional Duty to Protect Someone” — is a US Supreme Court 1985 case.

In the following article written by Jack Gooderidge, he examines the dynamics that is causing uproar over the police violence that has been part of our communities for many years. – Marvin Ramírez.

 

Following police brutality in the US, Mexicans are being empowered to speak out against prolonged and widespread brutality

 

by Jack Gooderidge

 

The intersection of police brutality and racial prejudice is currently at a critical mass in the United States.

With the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, and the subsequent reminders of countless racist killings by police throughout the years, the table has been set for the most widespread civil rights movement in the history of mankind; across the Americas, Europe, Asia, and elsewhere, millions are demanding systemic change.

From witnessing historic demonstrations for justice, we know that in addition to effective change being achievable and maintainable through protest, offshoots of the original cause often find the confidence to raise their voices. In the case of the George Floyd protests, Mexicans are being empowered to speak out against prolonged and widespread brutality by the police in their communities.

In leaked footage depicting the arrest of Giovanni López, he can be seen being detained by officers holding rifles before he is hustled into the back of a police pickup truck and taken to the local station. The morning after the footage was shot, López was pronounced dead at hospital from blunt force trauma to the head, but had also sustained a gunshot wound to the foot. He had originally been arrested for walking in public without a face mask.

Since initially losing traction in the media and in the public consciousness, the wave of protests sweeping the world seems to have empowered and energized the outrage over Giovanni López’s death. Tensions forged in the bloody history of police brutality in Mexico have long sought an outlet, but global outrage has finally lent the outburst the legitimacy it needs to stand a chance of affecting change.

This is a legitimacy it is going to need going forward, as the change being demanded is far from simply a reduction of violent police activity, but a revolution of a culture that places the police force beyond reproach. The López case seems to have shown the people of Jalisco that not only are the police resorting to violence in their line of work, they are seeking it out.

Robert Coogan, an American prison chaplain, summarized this perception when commenting on the strict regulations regarding face masks in public, saying that “corrupt police are taking advantage of this. It’s giving police one more opportunity to detain people (and) steal from them.”

López’s neighbors went even further when discussing the killing with the press, explaining that the police had been routinely arresting those without face masks and “roughing them up.” From some of the stories from residents around the area that López was arrested, it becomes clearer that the anger has been approaching a tipping point for some time.

But the problem stretches far wider than Jalisco and its policing of personal protective equipment; abuse, torture, and extra-judicial killings have been ubiquitous in Mexico for decades. Human rights groups regularly identify Mexico as one of the countries with the most corrupt and unmonitored police forces in the world, pointing time and time again to cases of beatings, waterboarding, electrocutions, and rape in police custody.

A UN report from 2015 implicated “all levels of the Mexican security apparatus in the context of the government’s efforts to combat crime.” It went on to state that “torture and ill treatment during detention are generalized in Mexico, and occur in a context of impunity,” a phenomenon that five years on still seems to persist with the same absence of accountability.

A strong and ultimately undeniable line of correlation links the ever-escalating cases of police brutality and the country’s continuation of the “war on drugs.” Between the years before the commitment to the drug wars and 2012 (when the conflict was at its peak), the number of cases of torture rose from 320 a year to an almost unfathomable 2,100, a number so high that the robotic denial of opportunistic violence in the police force by the government almost feels laughable.

Despite a modest reduction in cases since then, the UN report still cites the same causes for the cases that still occur — a cultural “tolerance, indifference, or complicity” among the authorities. This devil-may-care approach by the government, judiciary, and anti-corruption departments, in tandem with the continual militarization of police forces nationwide, has landed Mexico with authorities unaccountable to the people, and to themselves.

While this may all seem almost entirely detached from the protest movement in the United States, the bare bones of the conflict remain the same. There are long and ugly histories of police brutality in both countries, and it is especially useful to remember that many police forces in Mexico have received U.S. training.

Understanding this can help us begin to identify the tensions in Mexico as possessing the same DNA as those that sparked the protests in the U.S., and while the realities on the ground differ between the two countries, both are resisting persecution from a system that systematically devalues their lives.

Feeling able to ideologically ally these causes, focusing not on the differences but instead noticing the power struggles at play in both, may be what ultimately allows each one to be taken seriously by those they stand against.

For now, though, it remains to be seen whether the demonstrations in Mexico will have a longlasting legacy, but looking at the U.S. and the progress it is making with each day of the movement should give cause for hope. After all, it’s the same fight.

Jack Gooderidge writes from Campeche.

When you lose weight, your fat cells don’t just let go of fat

Belly flab is like a storage unit for the rest of your body

 

by Sara Chodosh

 

If cells were personified, each fat cell would be an overbearing grandparent who hoards. They’re constantly trying to make you eat another serving of potatoes, and have cabinets stacked with vitamins they never take.

Like that grandparent, your fat cells are always trying to store stuff. Fats? Of course. Vitamins? Heck yeah. Hormones? You bet. Random pollutants and toxins? Sure. Adipose tissue will soak all that up like an oily little sponge and keep it safe until you need it again. That’s the whole point of body fat—to store energy for you. When you lose weight, your fat cells start shrinking, releasing lipids and other fats into your bloodstream. These get broken down, and eventually the smaller molecules exit via your urine or breath.

But adipose cells release all the other molecules they’ve hoarded, too. That includes key hormones like estrogen, along with fat-soluble vitamins and any organic pollutants that found their way into your bloodstream as you gained weight.

Adipose tissue’s tendency to store things is an unfortunate side-effect, because often we need those things to be circulating, not sitting around. Take hormones, for instance. Female body fat actually produces some of its own estrogen in addition to storing it, and the more adipose tissue a person has, the more estrogen they’re exposed to. This is why being overweight puts you at an increased risk of getting breast cancer. Many types of breast cancer are caused by malfunctions in estrogen receptors, which are more likely to go haywire when more estrogen is around to stimulate them.

Vitamins pose the opposite problem. Adipose sucks up available fat-soluble vitamins (those stashed in adipose tissue instead of being excreted in your outgoing urine)—A, D, E, and K—and often doesn’t leave enough for the rest of your body. Studies suggest that obese people tend to suffer from vitamin D deficiencies because it’s all lurking in their adipose tissue. These vitamins can come back out as you lose weight, and as you decrease your body fat, you also allow more of your new vitamin D to stay in your bloodstream. Water-soluble compounds can just be peed out if you take too much of them, but because the vitamins stored in your adipose tissue can continue to build up you can eventually overdose on them. It’s rare, but it does happen.

Fat is also a (temporarily) safe space to store pollutants and other organic chemicals that might otherwise pose a threat. Organochlorine pesticides build up in fat, as do the polychlorinated biphenyls in coolant fluids and other chemicals from the “dirty dozen” of environmental contaminants. These banned chemicals can get into your food supply in small quantities and are stored in your fat, possibly because your body wants to sequester them away from your organs. Bodies don’t seem to store enough of these to become toxic, but the constant build-up leaves you vulnerable to exposure. And they do start to re-emerge when you lose weight.

Since you’re not eliminating all of your body fat at once, this doesn’t seem to pose a problem for most people. You’re dumping toxins into your bloodstream, but you’re also eliminating them through your pee. There’s some evidence that certain pollutants—so-called “persistent organic pollutants”—can stick around in your body fat for years, but so far it seems that natural toxin-elimination methods (also known as peeing) work well enough to get rid of them.

Safe or not, it’s best not to give your body a spot to stash all the hormones and vitamins it can hoard. Our bodies aren’t designed to hold onto excess body fat and stay healthy—that’s why obesity is a risk factor for so many diseases. Getting rid of fat storage is just another reason to try and cut down on your own adiposity this year. Letting someone shame you into thinking you don’t look the way you should is not a wise reason to lose weight, but doing it to be healthier usually is.

Just think: every time you lose a pound of fat, you’ve also literally detoxed yourself without ever having to do one of those terrible juice cleanses (which, by the way, do not work). You’ve used the power of your own body’s filtration systems to get rid of them—and it will thank you for it.

5 reasons to add fiber-rich raw oats to your diet

by Janine Acero

 

Oats (Avena sativa) are a widely consumed whole grain. This versatile breakfast favorite can be enjoyed in a lot of ways, and not just for breakfast.

Oats are popular among fitness buffs as an excellent source of soluble fiber, which is responsible for most of the grain’s health benefits. Oats also provide more plant protein than many other grains.

Oats can offer a wide range of nutrients. One cup (81 g) of raw oats contains:

­- 307 calories

– 55 g carbs

– 8 g fiber

– 11 g protein

– 5 g fat

– 27 percent of the Daily Value (DV) of magnesium

– 43 percent of the DV of selenium

– 27 percent of the DV of phosphorus

– 6 percent of the DV of potassium

– 27 percent of the DV and zinc

Due to the nutrient-dense nature of oats, they can provide various health benefits. Here are five science-backed reasons to consume oats regularly.

  1. Oats help lower cholesterol

Beta-glucan, a type of soluble fiber found in oats, has been shown to reduce cholesterol levels. When consumed, beta-glucan turns into gel, which restricts the absorption of cholesterol and interferes with the reabsorption of bile salts that help metabolize fats. According to studies, daily consumption of at least 3 g of beta-glucan from oats can reduce blood cholesterol levels by five to 10 percent.

Moreover, studies suggest that raw oats release more beta-glucan during digestion than cooked oats, affecting fat metabolism and cholesterol levels to a greater extent.

  1. Oats improve blood sugar control

Beta-glucan in oats has been shown to help control blood sugar levels due to its gel-like nature when digested. According to a study published in the Asia Pacific Journal of Clinical Nutrition, the gel’s viscosity helps slow digestion, preventing blood sugar spikes after a meal and stabilizing insulin production.

A review published in Nutricion Hospitalaria also revealed that consuming at least 4 g of beta-glucan per 30 g of carbs every day for 12 weeks reduced the blood sugar levels of people with Type 2 diabetes by 46 percent.

  1. Oats reduce high blood pressure

Studies have shown that soluble fibers like beta-glucan in oats can help reduce high blood pressure, which is a major risk factor for heart disease.

A study published in the Journal of Hypertension shows that consuming 8 g of soluble fiber from oat bran every day can help reduce systolic and diastolic blood pressure.

A pilot study, which appeared in The Journal of Family Practice, also reported similar results after participants consumed 5.5 g of beta-glucan every day for six weeks. At the end of the trial, the participants experienced a 7.5 and 5.5 mmHg reduction in systolic and diastolic blood pressure, respectively.

Another study in The Journal of Family Practice involving participants on hypertension medication showed that consuming 3.25 g of soluble fiber from oats daily for four weeks helped the participants reduce or stop their medication.

  1. Oats support gut health

If you are looking to add more gut-friendly foods to your diet, oats are a great choice. Oats also contain insoluble fiber, which has been shown to support a healthy bowel by increasing stool size.

As its name suggests, insoluble fiber is not water-soluble and does not turn into gel. Gut bacteria don’t ferment insoluble fiber to the same extent as soluble fiber, which allows it to increase fecal size.

According to the European Food Safety Authority, oats can increase stool weight by 3.4 g per gram of dietary fiber consumed.

In a study published in Clinical Interventions in Aging, researchers said that daily intake of oat fiber may be a useful and low-cost approach to treating constipation. Constipation affects approximately 15 percent of the general American population.

Raw oats naturally contain oat bran, which you can also buy on its own. (Related: Oats and gut health: The best breakfast has vitamins and fiber to keep your gut moving.)

  1. Oats help promote weight loss

As previously mentioned, oats are a popular superfood among fitness buffs. High intake of whole grain cereals like oats has been linked to a lower risk of weight gain and obesity.

The soluble fiber in oats can help keep you feeling full for long periods, thus reducing the risk of overeating throughout the day.

Studies have also shown that consuming oats can increase satiety and suppress appetite for over four hours compared with instant breakfast cereals. These effects can be attributed to beta-glucan.

Coupled with a well-rounded diet and regular exercise, oats can be a beneficial part of any sensible weight-loss strategy.

Learn more about oats and other whole grains at SuperfoodsNews.com.

Cannabis can help fight coronavirus, study says

by Franz Walker

 

Saturday, May 23, 2020 – Cannabis could be a new weapon in the fight against the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19), researchers say. A new study by scientists at the University of Lethbridge in Alberta says that cannabidiol (CBD) — the main non-psychoactive component of marijuana — can help fight the coronavirus by lowering the number of cell receptors available for the latter to attach to.

“There’s a lot of documented information about cannabis in cancer, cannabis in inflammation, anxiety, obesity and whatnot,” said Dr. Igor Kovalchuk, who co-authored the study alongside his wife, Dr. Olga Kovalchuck, and a team of other researchers from Lethbridge. “When COVID-19 started, Olga had the idea to revisit our data, and see if we can utilize it for COVID.”

“It was like a joker card, you know, coronavirus. It just mixes up everybody’s plans,” Olga added.

The Kovalchuks’ have been working with cannabis since 2015, using varieties from around the world to create new hybrids and develop extracts that demonstrate certain therapeutic properties.

CBD reduces available ACE2 receptors for the virus to latch on to

For the study, published in pre-peer review server Preprints, the researchers partnered with cannabis therapy research company Pathway Rx — of which Igor Kovalchuck is the CEO — and cannabinoid-based research company Swysh.

The team created 3D tissue models with human oral, mucociliary and intestinal tissues and tested them with different samples of high CBD extracts. The extracts were low in tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the main psychoactive ingredient in marijuana. (Related: CBD vs. coronavirus? Potential natural remedies that promote immunity.)

With this setup, the researchers then observed the effect that the extracts had on angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2), the receptor that the virus uses to enter human cells.

The results of the researchers’ tests demonstrated that the extracts helped reduce the number of these receptors that the coronavirus could use to “hijack” host cells.

“A number of them have reduced the number of [ACE2] receptors by 73 percent, the chance of it getting in is much lower,” stated Igor.

“If they can reduce the number of receptors, there’s much less chance of getting infected,” he added.

In addition to ACE2, the researchers also looked into other receptors such as transmembrane serine protease 2 (TMPRSS2), which allows the virus to invade cells more easily and multiply quickly.

“Imagine a cell being a large building,” explained Kovalchuk to CTV News. “Cannabinoids decrease the number of doors in the building by, say, 70 percent, so it means the level of entry will be restricted. So, therefore, you have more chance to fight it.”

Clinical trials still needed but exploring therapeutic options is important

The researchers’ early findings indicate that the CBD extracts could be used in inhalers, mouthwash and throat gargle products for both clinical and home treatment.

However, they say that people looking for CBD extracts to fight the coronavirus won’t be able to do so at their local dispensaries yet. They state that the current medical cannabis and CBD products, while helpful for a lot of ailments, are not designed to treat or prevent infection from COVID-19.

“The key thing is not that any cannabis you would pick up at the store will do the trick,” said Olga.

With this in mind, the researchers are now actively pursuing clinical trials. They stressed that their data is already based on human tissue models, so these trials are a natural next step.

They also highlight the importance of exploring every therapeutic option when it comes to fighting the coronavirus.

“Given the current dire and rapidly developing epidemiological situation, every possible therapeutic opportunity and avenue needs to be considered.”

“We need to bring it to the people,” says Olga. “We need to fight the beast.”

 

San Mateo receives the highest response to Census questionnaire

California’s #1 Census Success Story

 

by Pilar Marrero

Ethnic Media Services

 

San Mateo County has achieved the highest census self-response rate in California by working with local organizations that know their communities intimately and by targeting messages to them.

Those efforts by trusted, countywide, “on-the-ground” messengers were funded by more than $1.3 million from state and county monies, officials said during a June 30 conference call hosted by Ethnic Media Services.

San Mateo County has reached a 72.8 percent self-response in the 2020 census, higher than the state’s 62.9 percent average and the nation´s 61.8 percent.

This means that almost three out of four county residents already have filled out the population questionnaire, well ahead of the start of door-to-door visits by census enumerators, which are slated to start in mid-July for some U.S. locations and in August for the rest of the nation.

San Mateo County, located in the Bay Area on the San Francisco Peninsula between the cities of San Francisco and Palo Alto, is composed of dissimilar communities, and the high self-response number varies greatly. Some cities in the county, like Pescadero and East Palo Alto, are way behind in the count, according to local groups.

Megan Gosh, census management analyst of the San Mateo County Office of Community Affairs, said the county began working on the project to boost census responses back in January 2018.

“We had plenty of challenges: 13 of 20 cities in San Mateo have a combination of hard-to-count census tracks, as well as unincorporated areas all over the county,” she said.

Hard-to-count groups include renters, noncitizen residents with limited English proficiency and children under 5 years old, she added. California itself is a hard-to-count state.

The county’s lack of affordable housing means many addresses are not known to the Census Bureau because they are tied to “nontraditional” housing units, such as converted garages and recreational vehicles. In other cases, people living in rural areas would not get the letters or questionnaires because the bureau will not deliver them to post office boxes, which most rural residents rely on.

“We worked with city planners and local organizations to canvass areas with those nontraditional units and add their addresses to the master list of the census,” Gosh said.

That county project was able to add 2,000 addresses to the census master files. Using a conservative two persons per household, those additions would have resulted in $4 million per year for the county because population counts are tied to distribution of federal and state resources. They also are used to create electoral districts that are meant to ensure political representation of all communities. Undercounts tend to shortchange that representation.

Gosh and other county and community leaders described the more than two-year effort to get up-close, personal knowledge of those communities and what makes them tick, sometimes having to correct course and tailor messages to convince residents to participate in the census.

“For example, we received word that Daly City renters were hesitant to take the census due to lack of trust in sharing their information,” explained Melissa Vergara, a census specialist with San Mateo County. “So we created a targeted door hanger that spoke specifically about confidentiality laws for the census.”

Other areas are receiving “hyper-targeted” messages through social media campaigns and internet ads by zip code, videos and bus shelter billboards. Also helping was outreach through faith congregations and in different languages, depending on local ethnic composition.

Creativity and flexibility are key components of the strategies local organizations have used. Rita Mancera, executive director of Puente de la Costa Sur in Pescadero, said her community was seriously undercounted in the 2010 census, and “not one platform works by itself” in reaching everyone.

“The 2010 census counted 2,019 residents in our community, but we knew we served at least 1,600 individuals, so our estimate is that we had between 5,000 and 6,000 residents, most of whom had been missed,” Mancera said. She estimates that only about 33 percent of the community was counted in 2010. So far this year, Pescadero’s response rate is 46.1 percent.  “And it was very hard to get there,” she adds.

Many immigrant residents have trust issues because of their experience in their home countries, Mancera says. But the organization has used its relationship with those communities and families to get them to participate in the census.

“We distribute help to about 200 households every Thursday, urging them to use phones to respond to the census,” she explained. “We hired one person to call about 250 families that had received school supplies from us last year, so we could assist them in answering the census over the phone. There is also a lot of informal communication going on.”

An example of how a motivated community working with a trusted local organization can surpass expectations also occurred in Pacifica, a city where the self-response rate has been higher than that of neighboring, more affluent San Carlos.

“We leverage the trust they have in us,” said Anita Rees, executive director of Pacifica Resource Center. “Our organization has been serving the area for 45 years. This is a passionate community, often divided on issues, but the census has become common ground. For us, the message that the census is their voice being heard has worked, and also the community is competitive — they wanted to beat out San Carlos.”

Outreach to the Asian community has been highly targeted, said Nina Li, outreach coordinator for San Mateo County. More than 30 percent of the population of the county is Asian. Chinese, Tagalog and Hindi are the most spoken non-English languages, aside from Spanish.

Immigration status has been key to reach the diverse Asian populations, aside from language, said Li, who like many in her community is a non-citizen legal permanent resident who is experiencing her first decennial census.

“For many in our community, this is a new concept, and they have the misconception that this is similar to an election where you have to be a citizen to participate, which is not the case,” Lee said.

Li says their outreach efforts have used We Chat, a social media platform popular in Asia, and targeted messages to permanent residents and even temporary visa holders.

“I am not a citizen, but I go to parks and libraries, I use public transportation, and my daughter is going to go to public schools, all services impacted by the 2020 census for the next 10 years,” she said. “We make sure people know that.”

Lisa Tealer, executive director of the Bay Area Community Health Advisory Council, said African Americans, Latinos and others in East Palo Alto respond to the idea of regaining the power of “being counted,” a phrase that historically has had negative connotations because the census was used to discriminate against some communities in the past.

“We now claim it as power, we want to be counted because we helped build this country,” Tealer said.

Similarly, the Pacific Islander community residents respond to the idea that the census is a way to ensure resources for the new generations, said Talavoy Aumavae, leader in the San Mateo County Pacific Islander Complete Count Committee.

“We stressed the fact that our ancestors had migrated here for better opportunities for their families, and it’s imperative that we tie the census response to our futures,” Aumavae said.

Narco’s testimony to US drug agency links ex-president to cartels

Declassified documents show La Barbie was an agent for US authorities while trafficking drugs

 

by Mexico News Daily

 

A convicted drug lord provided information to United States authorities between 2008 and 2010 that linked former president Felipe Calderón and members of his government to Mexican drug cartels.

Edgar Valdez Villarreal, a United States citizen nicknamed La Barbie because of his fair skin, collaborated with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) while he was working as a drug trafficker with the Beltrán-Leyva Cartel.

That information has only recently come to light because court documents from Valdez’s 2018 sentence hearing in Atlanta, Georgia – at which he was sentenced to almost 50 years in jail – have been declassified.

Valdez told U.S. authorities that corrupt officials in the Calderón government revealed the identity of DEA agents in Mexico to the Sinaloa Cartel and the Beltrán-Leyva Cartel. The corrupt officials also supplied the cartels with photographs of the agents and told them where they were located, Valdez told authorities.

One DEA agent was murdered in the period in which the officials were supplying the confidential information to the cartels.

In a report published Thursday on the news website Aristegui Noticias, Mexican journalist Anabel Hernández noted that a lawyer for Valdez gave her a letter in 2012 in which the trafficker-cum-informant claimed that he had given multimillion-dollar bribes to Genaro García Luna, Calderón’s security minister who was arrested in the United States last December.

In the letter, published in November 2012 by the newspaper Reforma, Valdez also claimed that Calderón, the president who launched the so-called war on drugs shortly after he took office in late 2006, had personally met with drug traffickers.

Hernández wrote that Valdez most probably shared that information with the DEA and FBI between 2008 and 2010.

A lawyer for Valdez said in 2018 that Calderón’s crackdown on cartels was not in fact a war against drugs but a “war for drugs.”

In the letter given to Hernández, Valdez said that his arrest in Mexico in 2010 came about because he refused to cooperate with Calderón.

“My arrest was the result of political persecution by Felipe Calderón Hinojosa, who initiated harassment against me because I refused to be part of the agreement that Mr. Calderón Hinojosa wanted to have with all the organized crime groups,” he wrote.

Calderón has steadfastly denied any involvement with criminal groups and has also said that he had no knowledge of García Luna’s alleged collusion with cartels.

Source: Aristegui Noticias (sp) 

 

AMLO asks Canada to persuade mining companies to pay their taxes

President says companies are challenging the debts in international courts

President López Obrador has asked the Canadian government to help persuade Canadian mining companies to pay their tax debts in Mexico.

López Obrador said Tuesday that “a few Canadian mining companies” are not up to date with their tax obligations and want to dispute the fact in international courts.

He “respectfully” called on Canada’s ambassador to Mexico, Graeme Clark, to convince them to settle their debts with the Federal Tax Administration (SAT).

“What are we going to court for? It’s very clear that they have these debts with the SAT. Hopefully they’ll help us to convince them [to pay],” López Obrador told reporters.

He didn’t name the companies to which he was referring but First Majestic Silver Corp said last month that it served notice to the Mexican government under North American Free Trade Agreement provisions to begin negotiations to resolve disputes with the SAT.

Almost 70 percent of foreign-owned mining companies that operate in Mexico are Canadian, according to Global Affairs Canada, that country’s foreign affairs department. Canadian mining assets here were worth CAD $18.4 billion (US $13.7 billion at today’s exchange rate) in 2017, according to the Mining Association of Canada.

In calling for Canadian miners to settle their tax obligations, López Obrador pointed out that several large companies, including Walmart and Coca-Cola bottler Femsa, are paying back what they owe. He also said that Japanese automaker Toyota has agreed to settle its tax bill in Mexico.

“We thank the companies that decided to catch up and not go to court,” López Obrador said.

The president has made recouping unpaid tax a central objective of his administration as Mexico’s economy takes a battering from the coronavirus crisis.

The newspaper Milenio reported that SAT chief Raquel Buenrostro is ready to file criminal complaints against some large companies that have allegedly committed tax fraud.

She said that previous federal governments allowed large and powerful firms to get away with not paying their taxes but stressed that business owners now know that if they commit tax fraud, they will face legal action.

Buenrostro declined to name the companies that the government is planning to take legal action against but said that they operate in a range of sectors including steelmaking, food production, automotive, pharmaceuticals, energy and mining.

Source: Milenio (sp)

Annual food collection campaign

Grocery Outlet Announces Tenth Annual ‘Independence from Hunger®’ Campaign

 

One in Six Latino Households in the U.S. Struggles with Hunger

by Corporate announcements

 

Emeryville, Calif. (June 24, 2020)- Grocery Outlet Bargain Market, extreme-value grocery retailer, today launched its tenth consecutive Independence from Hunger® Food Drive to combat food insecurity. From June 24 – July 31, 2020, the campaign will collect cash donations and pre-made bags of nonperishable foods in-store at Grocery Outlet’s 350 locations that will be distributed to local food agencies partners. In addition to the local store donations, Grocery Outlet has initiated a “Million Dollar Match,” a pledge to match up to $1 Million of donations made to the stores to multiply Independence from Hunger’s effort to support food agencies across the nation. 

 

Locally, Grocery Outlet stores in the San Francisco area have partnered with food banks such as San Francisco and Marin Food Bank, among, others to collect food and cash donations.

 

According to the USDA’s latest analysis of Food Insecurity in America, 11 million households suffer limited access to food sources and suffer from food insecurity (USDA, Household Food Security in the United States in 2018).  In addition, according to Feeding America, one in six Latino households in the U.S. struggles with hunger.  For Latino children, the disparity is even more severe.  More than 18 percent of Latino children are at risk of hunger compared to 12 percent of White, non-Hispanic children.

 

Each independently owned and operated Grocery Outlet store is committed to giving back to the local community and have partnered locally to bring the community together in providing families nutritious food. This year, food agencies have experienced a growing need to provide food for children who have been prematurely released from annual school schedules, due to COVID-19. This has resulted in record lows for food bank inventories across the country.

 

“We feel it is more important than ever to help lessen the number of families across America at risk for food insecurity. This year, Grocery Outlet has pledged to match up to 1 million dollars to support and expand the program’s effort.” said Eric Lindberg, CEO at Grocery Outlet, Inc. “Last year, with the overwhelming help of our community, our campaign funded over 2 million dollars to those in need. In our tenth year, we are dedicated to make a greater impact.”

 

Since its launch in 2011, the Independence from Hunger campaign efforts have collected more than $5 million nationwide. Customers can make a difference by visiting their local Grocery Outlet and participating in one of these easy steps:

 

  • Give $5, get $5. Donate $5 or more in a single transaction in-store or online and you will receive a coupon for $5 off a future purchase of $25 or more.

  • Purchase a pre-made bag that is complete with an assortment of groceries selected by the local food agency and then place it in a collection bin at the front of the store.

  • Make an in-store donation at the register. Donations will benefit that store’s local food agency partner. Donate $1, $5 or round up your change.

  • Donate online by visiting GroceryOutlet.com/Donate. Online donations support the San Francisco bay area community through Grocery Outlet’s partnership with Alameda County Community Food Bank.

“With school closures resulting in record lows for food bank inventories across the country, we are once again reaching out to our loyal customers, employees and partners to join us and help support our neighbors in need.” said Lindberg. “Our goal is to continue providing access to high-quality and nutritious food for our local communities in need and this year have promised to match up to 1 million dollars to support our store’s efforts.”

Trump seeks to make permanent his changes to the immigration system

by the El Reportero‘s wire services

 

Donald Trump’s zero tolerance immigration policy changed the scenario built by the Ronald Reagan government. In 1986, the Immigration Reform and Control Act was enacted, an amnesty that allowed the regularization of at least 3 million undocumented immigrants living in the country.

The plan was to end undocumented migration. In the following 25 years; the number of unauthorized aliens went from 1.9 million left after the amnesty to 12 million at the end of the Barack Obama government. The latter deported more than 2.5 million people without papers in their terms.

In addition, Trump debuted in office with the enactment of two executive immigration orders, one on sanctuary cities and the other on the construction of the wall on the border with Mexico.

The decrees responded to his campaign promises, by awakening and using Section 212 (f). This is a part of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) to modify the interpretation of regulations drafted by Congress for a purpose other than the existing one.

On Wednesday night, the secretaries of Justice (DOJ) and Homeland Security (DHS) released a new asylum rule to be published next week in the Federal Register.

More Trump changes to the immigration system

There are also details of a new immigration executive order aimed at limiting H-1B and L-1 visa programs for foreign professional workers.

The changes made by Trump to the INA so far in his term were supported by the section that empowers the President to suspend the entry of foreigners.

 

Mexican Blood banks in crisis, lacking donors for Covid-19 patients

The Covid-19 pandemic leaves blood banks in Mexico without donors and without reservations, admitted today Jorge Enrique Trejo, director of the National Center for Blood Transfusion.

The official revealed to the press that in April and May the flow of donors was reduced between 63 and 85 percent compared to the same months of 2019. Confinement and fear of contracting Covid-19 in hospitals keep donors away, he said.

In the framework of World Blood Donor Day, the impact of the decrease reaches 92 and 88 percent in the Juárez and General de México hospitals, respectively, he gave as an example.

This drop has a greater projection in the blood banks found in hospitals that provide care for the Covid-19 pandemic, Trejo explained.

At the Red Cross, she said, the drop in altruistic donations is 45 percent, said Marisa Martínez, head of the institution’s Blood Bank, which has hygiene protocols so that people can contribute without fear.

If the supply has been maintained, it is because its use has been optimized thanks to the reduction of scheduled surgeries to which 60 percent were destined.

Maintaining blood component stocks after the drop in donation, which has been recorded during the pandemic due to donors’ fear of going to hospitals, is a huge challenge, she said.

Supply is decreasing in all blood banks. There are places where this drop has a greater projection, for example, in the banks that are contained in a hospital that is giving care to Covid-19, there is a more substantial drop in donors.

Many donors say they are afraid of getting the disease from going to a hospital that is giving so much attention to Covid-19, Trejo said.

According to the monthly reports sent to the National Blood Transfusion Center by the country’s blood banks, in April 2020 it registered a collection of 52,677 total effective donations and for May 32,855 units, when last year there were 144 one thousand.

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