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Fur Industry Challenges San Francisco Fur Ban

FICA: San Francisco’s Attack on Consumer Choice is Unconstitutional

 

Released by Fur Information Council of America

 

Monday January 13, 2020 (Porter Ranch, CA) —Today the Fur Information Council of America (FICA) applauds the filing of a lawsuit seeking to overturn San Francisco’s ban on the sale of new fur and fur trimmed coats. The City ordinance/ban prohibits the sale of all fur apparel, including coats, trims, and accessories. It took full effect on January 1st.

The lawsuit argues that San Francisco’s ban, driven by the city health department, is unconstitutional and does not serve a legitimate local interest, such as health or safety. The ordinance is so far-reaching that it even bans fur products regulated by the fish and wildlife agencies and certified under FurMark, a global, science-based program that verifies sustainability and animal welfare in fur production.

San Francisco’s ban also opens the door to greater infringement on consumer choice. The ban was driven by ideological animal liberation radicals who also want to ban wool, leather, cashmere, and other animal-based fibers or food products, such as meat, poultry, eggs, seafood and even pet companionship.

Keith Kaplan, spokesman for FICA, stated: “This ban does nothing to improve animal welfare. True progressivism is not the city council dictating to people that they can’t buy fur or what they must eat or wear, but in supporting science-based programs such as FurMark that ensure sustainability and animal welfare.”

This litigation is one of many such against overbearing California laws, including litigation by the state of Louisiana against a California state law prohibiting sale of alligator byproducts—which recently scored a court victory putting a temporary stay on this ban.

If successful, the lawsuit could have implications for both Los Angeles and the state of California, which passed fur bans in 2019 that go into effect in several years.

 

Actor, director, comedian and author Cheech Marin is LEAD XI honorary chair/padrino de honor

by Office of Strategic Communications

University of San Bernardino

 

Richard Anthony Marin, better known as Cheech Marin, will be the honorary chair/padrino de honor for the 2020 Latino Education & Advocacy Days LEAD Summit XI, set for March 26 at Cal State San Bernardino.

Each year the summit, which is open to the public and free to attend, brings together teaching professionals and educators, researchers, academics, scholars, administrators, independent writers and artists, policy and program specialists, students, parents, civic leaders, activists and advocates – all sharing a common interest and commitment to education issues that impact Latinos to help them definethe future.

 

The theme for the 11th annual summit is “Movimiento y Compromiso: 50 Years of Challenges, Possibilities, and the Quest for Educational Equity.” The summit programs will revisit and commemorate social movements from the last 50 years, including the birth of Chicano-ethnic studies, the school walkouts/blowouts, bilingual education and the Chicano Moratorium.

“Our audience/membership will be a perfect fit with all the efforts with the Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art, Culture and Industry of the Riverside Art Museum, and this opportunity would serve to share the tremendous economic impact the Cheech Marin Center will have on the Inland Empire and how the museum in our region will elevate us in the art world,” said Enrique Murillo Jr., LEAD executive director and CSUSB professor of education. “Cheech Marin will share how the renovation project is progressing, what types of programs we can expect to see at the ‘Cheech’ and how we can be part of the incredible effort.”

Marin is probably best known as half of the comedic “irreverent, satirical, counter-culture no-holds-barred duo of Cheech and Chong,” as his website states. But he also is an actor, director, writer, musician, art collector and humanitarian.

Born in South Central Los Angeles, Marin met Tommy Chong in Vancouver, British Columbia. Once they moved back to Los Angeles, the duo rocketed into fame, with six of their albums going gold, four of them nominated for Grammys, with the album “Los Conchinos” awarded the 1973 Grammy for Best Comedy Recording. They also appeared in eight feature films.

Marin appeared his own work, written and directed by him, “Born in East L.A.” in 1987. He also appeared on TV, including the crime drama “Nash Bridges” with Don Johnson from 1996-2001, as well as the voice of several animated film characters, including Ramone in “Cars” and Banzai in “The Lion King.”

Off screen, Marin is known as a strong advocate for Chicano art, and began developing his collection in the mid-1980s, according to his website bio. “Much of it formed the core of his inaugural exhibition Chicano Visions: American Painters on the Verge, which broke attendance records during its groundbreaking 15‐city tour during 2001‐2007 to major art museums across the United States,” the website says. “He states, ‘Chicano art is American art. My goal is to bring the term “Chicano” to the forefront of the art world.’”

The portions of his collection have toured more than 50 major art museums in the United States and Europe. In the Inland Empire, Marin has entered into “a partnership with the city of Riverside and the Riverside Art Museum to create the Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art, Culture and Industry (aka ‘The Cheech’),” Marin’s website says. “Slated to open in 2021, The Cheech will become the permanent home for his more than 700 works of Chicano art, including paintings, sculptures, and photography; collectively, the most renowned Chicano art collection in the United States.”

Registration for LEAD XI, which is free, may be done online at the LEAD Summit XI website at leadsummit.csusb.edu. LEAD Summit XI will take place from 8 a.m. to about 4 p.m. at the university’s Santos Manuel Student Union.

Noche Bohemia with Rubén Darío poetry and Nicaraguan folklore

ANNOUNCEMENT:

The Northern California Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Community Foundation Announces its Mlk2020 Events “The Time for Justice” January 13-20.

To see the complete schedule for all the coming events, please visit https://norcalmlkevents.odoo.com/schedule

 

by the El Reportero‘s news services

 

A tribute to ‘El Principe de las Letras Castellanas’, Félix Rubén García Sarmiento (his birthday name) will celebrate Nicaraguan poet Rubén Darío on Jan. 18.

Everyone is invited to this event in honor of the father of Modernism Ruben Dario with a night full of poetry, folklore and culture.

Present will be Latin Grammy Award Winner Carlos Mejia Godoy presenting his musical interpretations of Ruben’s work giving life to not only our poetry but the Nicaraguan history.

On Saturday, Jan. 18 at 6:30 – 9 p.m., at the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts, 2868 Mission St, San Francisco.

Free admission, limited space. Arrive early.

 

Salsa group Adelante

What’s best than enjoying a nice evening with salsa played by the hands of a woman?

A leader of her own band, Adelante, Suzanne Cortez has become a tradition in the salsa music scene and a preferred band for many of her salsa dance followers.

On Saturday, Jan.18, at 8 – 11 p.m., at the 7 Mile House – Historic Sports Bar, Grill & Live Music Venue, 2800 Bayshore Blvd, 2800 Bayshore Blvd, Brisbane California.

 

Flamenco at La Peña Cultural Center

In her 7th annual showcase, Flamencura: 7th Annual Melissa Cruz Flamenco presents flamenco artist Melissa Cruz and her dancers.

Doors Open 7:30 p.m. / Show Starts 8 p.m. $20 in Advance/$25 at the Door/$20 Students/Seniors at the door. At La Peña Cultural Center – 3105 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley.

 

Happy New Year! Ready for the best Rock event in Spanish and the best of Manna music

Get ready because from the same voice of one of Maná’s vocalist and percussionist, he arrives for the first time in three cities in the Bay Area!

We are excited to bring this great tribute to Mana to Northern California with Hector Quintana, 2nd voice and percussionist from Mana. You won’t want to miss this semi-private concert!

On Jan. 22 at Mango’s in Sacramento. For VIP reservations 925-521-4038, info@parceritasproductions.com.

 

‘The last Mambo’ screening and dance party at La Peña Cultural Center

“The Last Mambo” explores the past, present and future of the salsa/Latin jazz music and dance community in the San Francisco Bay Area. After the film screening, there will be a question/answer section with Rita Hargrave, film director, Luis Medina KPFA radio, exploring the future of the Bay Area’s Latin music community.

This screening is a fundraiser and profits and donations will go towards completion of the film.

 

City of Redwood City Launches Pilot Program with Downtown Streets Team

Help the Homeless Get Back into the Workforce and Housing

 

The City of Redwood City recently launched a two-year pilot program run by the Downtown Streets Team to help individuals who are currently homeless, or at-risk of becoming homeless, transition into long-term employment and housing.

To participate, people experiencing homelessness should attend a Downtown Streets Team Weekly Success Team Meeting, held every Wednesday at 1 p.m. at the Dragon Theatre, located at 2120 Broadway in Redwood City. At the beginning of the program the volunteers will focus on downtown from 8 a.m. to noon daily. Soon, the team will expand it to other areas of the city.

Marcus López and his local SF band Mission Varrio Project celebrates CD ‘Urban Gentrification’

by El Reportero news services

 

If you’re looking for to listen to some different type of music, you should check Marcus López’ spiritual Habana sound out, which he learned on the streets of his beloved Cuba.

As a child he was drawn to percussion instruments and played them exclusively.

But on his arrival in the United States several decades ago, he met a friend from school that had a band and was in need of a bass player. He persuaded Marcus to play and he fell in love with the instrument. He never once looked back. He’s been playing bass ever since.

Over the years Marcus produced local Contemporary Cuban Music for a local band he led, Cubanacan.

But after a long run of 20 years he decided to change genres and start producing hybrid music which led to his present band, Mission Varrio Project.

The band put out their first cd in 2012 which earned them a Grammy Award nominee in Hamberg Germany; after that victory the band felt the need to pursue other, newer…. and a more challenging frontier. Five years of intense studio work behind them and the formula was done.

The birth of their new EP called Urban Gentrification, which has done very good in the New World Beat category on the ethnocloud.com platform.

“This production for me is my legacy, but not the end. It is the beginning of more to come. I’m calling it “2020 Vision” part 1, Marcus said to El Reportero. “This project is dedicated to the Mission District and the city of San Francisco for their support over the decades. Cheers to the New.”

Marcus has performed with many bands, including Limbo, Zorro, Malo, Francisco Aguabella, Amanda Hugh, Jorge Santana, Chuchito Valdez and many more.

You may purchase the CD and help independent music creation to keep sounding, at iTunes, CD Babe and Amazon.

https://www.facebook.com/missionvarrioproject/

 

The camerawoman of Lila Avilés, winner of Best Prima Opera at the Cinema Tropical Awards

The camerawoman of the Mexican director Lila Avilés was awarded as Best Prima Opera of the Cinema Tropical Awards in its tenth edition.

The Cinema Tropical Awards were created in 2010 in recognition of excellence in cinema in Latin America. It is the first international recognition dedicated entirely to honor the art of recent Latin American cinema.

La Camarista (2018), by Lila Avilés, was the winning film of the Eye to Mexican Feature Film in the 16th edition of the Morelia International Film Festival (FICM), which received the prize awarded in collaboration with Nespresso.

The winners were announced at a ceremony held at a special ceremony at the headquarters of The New York Times Company in New York City. Among the prizes awarded are also:

Best Film Award: La flor (2019, dir. Mariano Llinás), Best Director, André Novais Oliveira, Best Documentary: LAPÜ (2019, dir. Juan Pablo Polanco and César Alejandro Jaimes), Best Latin Film of the United States: The Infiltrators (2019, dir. Alex Rivera, Cristina Ibarra).

 

Los Sebastianes Band with double nomination for the Iheartradio Music Awards 2020

Banda Los Sebastianes is again nominated for the iHeartRadio Music Awards, and achieves it twice in the categories “Best New Regional Mexican Artist” and “Regional Mexican Song of the Year” (Regional Mexican Song of the Year) for his hit song “Through the Glass.”

The iHeartRadio Music Awards 2020 will be broadcast live on Fox on Sunday, March 29, at 8 p.m./7 p.m. Central from The Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles. In addition to the live broadcast, the show will be broadcast on more than 150 iHeartRadio stations nationwide, and by the iHeartRadio app.

 

NO TE VA GUSTAR wraps up 2019 with more than 100 concerts performed!

“No Te Va Gustar’s sublime rock reached a peak on El Calor del Pleno Invierno. 

A key album for the nine-member band formed in 1994 in Montevideo, it went platinum in three days after its release in Uruguay and propelled the band to double-Platinum status in neighboring Argentina, confirming their place in the pantheon of Latin rock’s biggest stars. Key tracks include Nada Fue en Vano and A las Nueve. — J.C.N.

With 77 acoustic concerts and more than 100 in total, including their electric presentations, NTVG reaches the end of a vibrant year full of emotions.

Their classic songs and those songs that are not played in the live massive shows – but that are fundamental pieces of their records – were reinterpreted in an intimate way using an acoustic instrumentation as base. Special invited guests included Julieta Venegas, Draco Rosa, Jorge Drexler, Flor de Toloache, Catalina Garcia (Monsieur Periné) and Hugo Fattoruso.

The new racism in the US: against white people  

by Walter E. Williams

 

A voter may dislike a black, homosexual or female candidate, but it’s not likely that he would openly admit it. However, diversity-crazed leftist/progressive Democrats have openly condemned the physical characteristics of some of their 2020 presidential candidates. Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders are leading the polls despite the fact that they have been condemned as old white men. While Pete Buttigieg is homosexual, something that pleases diversity crazies, he is also a white man, young and religious. With Kamala Harris’s departure from the race, the Democratic field has lost one of its persons of color. Another, Senator Cory Booker, stands at 2% in the polls; his days are numbered. That means the only Democratic candidates polling high are those condemned as old white people — two men and one woman, Elizabeth Warren.

LaTosha Brown, the co-founder of Black Voters Matter, said she was initially eager for Joe Biden to enter the race but now has second thoughts. Brown said: “I’m over white men running the country. I don’t know if him [sic] getting in changes the field. He has name recognition, but his strength is also his weakness.” Former presidential candidate Howard Dean lamented, “If we have two old white guys at the top of this ticket, we will lose.” The newest entry into the presidential sweepstakes, Michael Bloomberg, had to apologize for what some see as his diversity insensitiveness namely that of calling fellow presidential candidate Cory Booker “well-spoken” in a TV interview. The New Jersey senator said he was “taken aback” by what he saw as Bloomberg’s racist “trope.”

Michael Moore gave us his racist warning: “Two-thirds of all white guys voted for Trump. That means anytime you see three white guys walking at you, down the street toward you, two of them voted for Trump. You need to move over to the other sidewalk because these are not good people that are walking toward you. You should be afraid of them.”

This is the new racism, much of it learned and taught at our nation’s colleges. George Orwell said, “Some ideas are so stupid that only intellectuals believe them.” The stupid ideas about inclusion and diversity originate with academics on college campuses. If their ideas didn’t infect the rest of society, they might be a source of entertainment. But these cancerous ideas have infected society. Statements such as “I’m over white men running the country,” or “If we have two old white guys at the top of this ticket, we will lose” are examples of that cancer.

Last year, Philip Carl Salzman wrote “The War Against White People” in Minding the Campus. He declared: “Anti-white hate is now mainstream American culture. Not just by racial extremists such as Black Lives Matter, for whom statements such as “all lives matter” or “blue lives matter” are racist. Our highest leaders sing the same song.”

When Barack Obama was campaigning for the presidency in 2008, he said of working-class white voters, “They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.” During the 2016 presidential campaign, candidate Hillary Clinton claimed that half of Donald Trump’s supporters were “a basket of deplorables” who were “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic — you name it.” Do you think Clinton was talking about Trump’s black, Asian and Hispanic supporters? No, she was talking about millions of Trump’s white supporters.

Then there’s Sarah Jeong, a member of The New York Times editorial board and graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, and Harvard Law School. She expressed publicly many anti-white opinions. Among them are: “The world could get by just fine with zero white people.” “Dumbass f—ing white people marking up the internet with their opinions like dogs pissing on fire hydrants.” It’s “kind of sick how much joy I get out of being cruel to old white men.” I guarantee you that The New York Times would have fired any employee making similar statements about black, Hispanic or homosexual people.

The bottom line is that the new racism, born in academia, is just as ugly as the old racism.

(Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University).

The 2020s: A peek at the decade ahead

NOTE FROM THE EDITOR

 

Dear readers,

 

As we start the engines to ride on the 2020 machine, let’s see what investigative reporter James Corbett bring us on his vision for this next decade. Fasten your seat belts and don’t be scared, but be cautious. As it is often done with long articles, this one has been cut to fit space. – Happy New Year. — Marvin Ramírez.

 

by James Corbett

corbettreport.com

 

Well, that didn’t take long. You’ll recall that it was mere weeks ago that I predicted that the trend of 2020 would be “The End of the Internet (as we’ve known it),” and, sadly, before 2019 was even finished a steady stream of stories flooded the newswires to prove me correct.

Morocco has sentenced a YouTuber to four years in prison for daring to insult the king.

The Singaporean government has forced Facebook to publish a “correction” on a post that they deemed to contain “fake news.”

Four townships in northern Myanmar remain under one of the longest internet blackouts in the world for daring to assert a desire for ethnic self-determination.

And Russia and China have teamed up on a new convention that will empower the UN to convene a panel of “international experts” to determine how best to combat online thought crime.

And all of that was just in the past few weeks. Imagine what we have to look forward to throughout the rest of 2020. Not pleasant, is it?

Now imagine what we’ll have to look forward to through the 2020s. Even worse, huh?

Yes, as bleak as things seem at the moment, there are any number of reasons to believe that things are going to be that much worse a decade from now. And I’m not just talking about internet censorship here, either. After all, as dedicated Corbett Reporteers will already know, the technocrats are all on board for Agenda 2030.

So buckle in, folks. Let’s take a ride through the next ten years of technocratic tyranny . . . and see if there’s a way we can derail this agenda before we arrive at its final destination.

TRANSHUMANISM

A pair of stories book-ending the 2010s give us an insight into the breathtaking changes we’re likely to live through in the 2020s.

Image result for TRANSHUMANISMO

The first story started in 2011, when 18-year-old inventor Palmer Lucky, working in the garage of his parents’ house in Long Beach, California, put together a prototype for a virtual reality headset called Oculus. In 2012, the prototype started making buzz at trade shows, and by 2014 it had enough sizzle to catch the eye of the billionaire charlatan Mark Zuckerberg, who ended up buying the company for a cool $2 billion. That, of course, led to that creepy, iconic photo of ZuckerBorg himself—sporting the only genuine grin he’s ever cracked in his life—striding through a crowd of Oculus Rift-wearing Matrix-dwellers.

While we contemplate that, let’s look at:

AGENDA 2030

While a trillion dollar space economy in 2020 sounds mighty impressive, it has to be put in its proper perspective. After all, as I recently pointed out, the Bank of England and others are now estimating that the transition to the new “green” economy is going to require $90 trillion of infrastructure investment in the next ten years.

Image result for agenda 2030

Yes, that’s trillion with a “t.”

Keep in mind that our good friends at the CIA estimate that the GDP of the entire planet—the “Gross World Product”—is about $80 trillion. So you can’t accuse the globalists of setting their sights low in this latest swindle.

We’ve been prepped for this for decades now. The catchwords of this agenda—”green economy” and “sustainable development” and “Agenda 21” and all the other feelgood buzzwords that have been thrown around to put a friendly face on the monopolization of the planet and its resources—has been drilled into the victims of the government indoctrination system at least since I was a boy growing up in Canada. By this point, people hardly bat an eyelid when they’re told that the G20 nations are going to have to cough up more than the Gross World Product in the course of the next decade to “save the earth” from the weather gods.

But while the overall message has been remarkably consistent over those decades, you’ll notice one thing in particular changed in the branding of this agenda recently. In September 2015 the United Nations officially adopted the “2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development,” which outlines the 17 development goals and 169 targets that will transition the planet into the Brave New World of technocratic dictatorship in the next decade.

As I pointed out at the time, the Agenda 2030 development goals are the kind of harmless-looking mealy-mouthed political platitudes that seem innocuous precisely insofar as you don’t for a second contemplate specifically how they are to be achieved.

End poverty in all its forms! Yaaaaaay!

. . . by giving international financial control to the IMF and the World Bank.

End global hunger! Yaaaaaay!

. . . by promoting Big Agra and their biotech GMO monstrosities.

Ensure access to energy for all! Yaaaay!

. . . by connecting people to the constant surveillance of the smart grid internet of things.

And on and on. You all know that story by now. But the interesting factor is that the timetable has been updated. From a vague “Agenda 21” for the 21st century to a specific “Agenda 2030,” it seems the planners of this technocratic nightmare have some big things in store for the 2020s.

And make no mistake, that’s exactly what this agenda really is at base: the fulfillment of the technocratic vision. A vision in which every interaction and transaction in the world comes under the purview of the technocrats. A world in which every natural resource is monopolized, financialized, tokenized, budgeted, allocated and tracked. A world by the technocrats for the technocrats. And, if we’re lucky, they’ll allow us to live in their world . . . if we stick to our carbon budget, of course.

Now, ambitious agenda targets are a kind of calling card of the psychopathic elitists. They tend to think rather too highly of themselves and their ability to make things happen with a mere wave of their hands. So I don’t expect that this agenda will actually be fulfilled by 2030, but it will be well on the way by then. And given the remarkable pace of technological development, it is difficult to imagine that the combined will of billionaire technocrats like Elon Musk and others of his ilk will fail to produce some nightmarishly big breakthroughs in brain-computer interface technology and other sophisticated technocratic googads between then and now.

THE FUTURE IS WHAT WE MAKE IT

All of this may sound pretty bleak, and there’s no denying that some aspects of this nightmare vision are going to happen whether we like them or not. Average Joes like us may not have the ability to personally derail the machinations of the central banksters and their UN/IMF/World Bank/G20/CFR/Bilderberg/Club of Rome-connected cronies.

But we still (for the time being) control ourselves. We control our bodies and what we do with them. We control who we interact with and who we dissociate ourselves from. We control what media consume, what information we take on board, and what ideas we engage with. We control what we buy and from whom. We control what we consume and what we do not consume. We have the ability to boycott and to buycott. We still have the ability to garden (even guerrilla garden) and create local communities and exchanges (agorist and otherwise) and we can still refuse to cooperate with those who seek to control us.

It will be noted, of course, that every single one of these liberties are under attack from some angle or another. It will be pointed out (quite correctly) that our freedom to reject the various forms of technological control and state impositions are limited by our ability to make a living in the modern world. Objections will be raised—not without merit, mind you—that the space for dissent is being algorithmically narrowed and our ability to even control our own thoughts is being brought into question as internet filter bubbles that we barely realize exist begins to shape our perception of the world and call into question the very notion of free will.

But in this moment of time before the final page of human history has been written, it is important to note that we do have space to chart another path. If you did not believe that, you would not be here.

That’s why the 2020s could be the most remarkable decade in the history of human civilization. It could be a time of unprecedented awakening.

These ten years could be marked by billions of people shaking themselves out of their slumber and realizing that they are the billions who are controlled by the few, the teeming multitude afraid of the tiny dot. We could stop watching the shadows on the cave wall and, turning our heads for the first time, contemplate reality in all its blinding brilliance.

The 2020s could be a time of cooperation. A time of community building. A time of casting off hierarchies and the tyranny of authority.

Or it could be the last gasp before the descent down the slope toward total tyranny. The last gasp of humanity before we are subsumed by the transhuman GMO simulacrum of our once-great civilization.

There are no pat answers or easy solutions here. Only millions of decisions that we’ll have to make over the course of the next decade. Decisions about how and where to live, who to interact with, what to spend our time and money on, and what to do with our lives. But if we don’t try, the decision will be made for us.

The choice is ours to make.

Happy New Year, everyone!

Black cumin seed, a traditional folk remedy, is becoming popular for its health benefits and synergistic effects

by Darnel Fernandez

 

Black cumin seed is derived from the Nigella sativa plant, a small flowering shrub native to Eastern Europe, western Asia and the Middle East. While they may not look like much, these tiny black seeds have been used in medicinal remedies for thousands of years to treat a wide range of health conditions, including certain immune and inflammatory disorders. Nowadays, this seed is often found in the form of oil and is growing to be a popular health food due to its fantastic benefits and synergistic effects.

Black seed oil is on the rise

Black cumin seed (and its oil form) harbor incredibly diverse benefits, ranging from reducing inflammation, helping in weight loss, strengthening the immune system and even lowering blood pressure. In fact, a recent paper published in the Journal of Nutrition & Food Sciences found that black seed oil exhibited a wide array of positive effects on obese mice.

To test the efficacy of black cumin seed on the blood pressure of obese mice, researchers from the US, Italy and Israel fed a high-fat diet to a group of male mice over the course of 20 weeks.

The mice were divided into three groups of five animals each. The first group was the “lean” and the second was the high-fat diet (HFD) group. The third group consisted of mice fed HFD and then supplemented with doses of black seed oil for the final eight weeks. The researchers analyzed antioxidant biomarkers, inflammatory biomarkers, hepatic steatosis, mitochondrial biogenesis and tissue fat accumulation.

The researchers observed that the HFD with black seed oil group exhibited lower blood pressure and lower fasting glucose compared to the regular HFD group. The treatment of black seed oil was also shown to improve metabolic function and liver health, as seen through the reduced risk of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.

The researchers concluded that their findings could open a path to new therapeutic approaches to treat obesity-related diseases

Other fantastic benefits of black seed oil

Black seed oil has shown promise in treating a variety of common health conditions such as high blood pressure and even asthma. Here is a list of the various health benefits you can enjoy if you start incorporating this superfood into your diet. (Related: Black cumin seeds provide many wonderful health benefits.)

  1. Lowers hypertension. The presence of healthy fatty acids like oleic acids in the oil can help the body balance its cholesterol levels, which can improve blood circulation. A study published in the journal Fundamental and Clinical Pharmacology evaluated the efficacy of black cumin seed extract in patients with mild hypertension. The researchers observed that the participants experienced lower systolic blood pressure values after only eight weeks of supplementation. In addition, black cumin seed extract caused a significant decline in the level of total cholesterol and low-density lipoprotein (LDL) or “bad” cholesterol.
  2. Helps manage diabetes. A study published in the Indian Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology investigated the potential of black cumin seeds as an adjuvant therapy in patients with Type 2 diabetes. The researchers found that a dose 2g black cumin seed extract every day could act as a beneficial adjuvant to oral hypoglycemic agents for diabetics.
  3. Prevents asthma attacks. Studies have established a link between reduced asthma attacks and regular use of black seed oil. In fact, a study published in the journal Fundamental and Clinical Pharmacology found that black seed oil has a prophylactic effect on asthmatic disease, but warrants further research regarding this effect.

As more research is done on the health effects of black seed oil, more and more people will get to enjoy its benefits.

 

Construction of Casa de La Mision begins to do justice to displaced elders

by Araceli Martínez

 

Leaders of Mission Neighborhood Centers and Mercy Housing laid the first stone of Casa de La Mision on Jan. 9, which will be an accessible housing building for older adults who have been displaced from the Latino Mission neighborhood in San Francisco, and faced the homelessness. The building is located at 3011 24th Street, San Francisco, California, at the former Mission Girls Center.

Casa de La Misión will be located in the heart of the Mission, and will give a roof to 45 older adults. “It is the result of an alliance between Mission Neighborhood Centers and Mercy Housing,” said Santiago “Sam” Ruíz, president of Mission Neighborhood Centers Inc.

“With this project we are doing justice to the displaced from the Mission District that has been the epicenter of the displacement of the elderly,” said Sam.

And he explained that the place where the apartment building for the elderly will be built, two decades ago, they bought it to provide community services and develop the Head Start, a program of the Federal Department of Health and Human Services that provides early childhood education, health, nutrition and services for parents of low-income children and their families.

“That place was going to be purchased to put on a Taco Bell franchise, but when we found out, we mobilized not only because of the displacement it was going to cause but because of the economic impact on local businesses, and we managed to buy it with the support of community friends to support 60 children under the Head Start program, “Sam recalled.

“The idea of ​​us was to make it an asset for the community, and so it will be now that it will be home for 45 displaced elders of the Mission, to whom we want to say, welcome to your home,” Sam said.

The construction of Casa de La Mision is financed with a donation of five million from the Bettye Poetz Ferguson Foundation, and low-income housing tax credits.

Sam said the construction that is there now will be demolished to build the apartment building for the elderly. The demolition would begin in two days.

“It will be five floors. On the first floor we will offer social services, and there will be a garden on the terrace,” he said.

The apartment building will also have a community space, laundry, lobby and offices for administrators.

“We are very proud of this project and because we have become a change agency,” he said.

Liliana “Lila” Carrillo, head of foreign affairs and policy at Mission Neighborhood Centers said she expects the apartment building to be inaugurated between May and June of 2021. “Construction will take about 18 months. At this time the requirements that beneficiaries must meet will be established, but the apartments are dedicated to providing a roof for displaced elderly people who are quite vulnerable, “he said.

He added that senior citizens are the fastest growing population in the San Francisco area, and who find it harder to find housing.

“It is estimated that by 2030 they will be 30 percent of the population,” said Lila.

Once the departments are assigned, the beneficiaries will have to pay a percentage of their income as rent.

“They will be apartments of one bedroom, and in each one, an older adult will be located,” he added.

In Casa de La Misión they will also have social and medical services.

“They do not necessarily have to be homeless but must be older adults who live in small rooms, with a family member, or are at risk of being in the street,” she says.

The mayor of San Francisco London Breed accompanied the leaders of Mission Neighborhood Centers, Mercy Housing, and other community leaders, to participate in the groundbreaking of Casa de La Misión.

“I am very excited because this is the sixth building that begins to be built in the Mission since I am mayor, which will represent 600 units in this community,” she said at the construction start ceremony.

“The reason why this is happening at this rate is because of the leadership of the people I saw here,” she said.

And she recalled that the late mayor of San Francisco, Ed Lee, promised to build affordable housing and pay special attention to the Mission community so that when new housing developments were built, residents had access.

“I am very grateful because the work we have done is finally paying off,” she said. And she called Casa de La Mision an incredible project that is just the tip of the iceberg.

“Next month we are going to open 94 homes on Shotwell Street, 100 percent accessible units. But we have to make sure that the community is at the forefront of those requests because this is how we are protecting future generations,” she said.

Although the displacement in the Mission has disproportionately affected Latinos, Lila noted that they hope to benefit all those older adults who qualify.

“Applications are going to be made through community organizations,” she says.

Mission Neighborhood Centers has long been an operator of youth services, and served the low-income residents of the community.

Casa de La Misión is the first of four projects to create 345 homes for low-income seniors that had become stuck due to lack of funds. With the commitment of 30 million dollars from the Bettye Poetz Ferguson Foundation, Mercy Housing California can move forward to make them a reality.

Bettye Poetz Ferguson, a philanthropist and devout Catholic, resident of the San Francisco Bay Area, asked before she died that the scholarships be donated to a Catholic organization working in the field of accessible housing.

Mercy Housing California is very grateful to Bettye and her foundation because with her donation, hundreds of low-income seniors will have safe and accessible housing for years to come, including those of the Casa de La Misión.

Investigators find human remains that could be those of 43 missing students

Results of laboratory analyses expected within two months

 

by Mexico News Daily

 

Human remains found in Guerrero might be those of the 43 students who disappeared in September 2014, a lawyer for the victims’ parents said on Thursday.

Vidulfo Rosales said that remains found by the National Search Commission in municipalities that neighbor Iguala – the city in which the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers College students were abducted – will be analyzed by both Mexican and foreign experts.

Some of the remains will be analyzed in Mexico and some will be sent to the Institute of Legal Medicine at the Medical University of Innsbruck, Austria, he said. Results could be ready in February or March, Rosales said.

The lawyer said that the discovery of the remains has led to the formulation of a new theory about what happened to the 43 young men who vanished on September 26, 2014. They were allegedly handed over to the Guerreros Unidos crime gang by corrupt municipal police who stopped the buses the students had commandeered to travel to a protest in Mexico City.

Rosales said the hypothesis is that the students’ bodies were not burned in the Cocula garbage dump as the previous federal government claimed in its so-called “historical truth.”

Instead, they may have been separated on September 26 or September 27 and taken to locations in the municipalities of Eduardo Neri, Huitzuco and Taxco, he said.

The lawyer also announced that experts from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights will be allowed to continue its investigation into the case.

The previous government refused to renew the mandate of the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts(GIEI) in 2016. Based on forensic analysis, the group dismissed the possibility that the students’ bodies were burned at the Cocula dump by members of the Guerreros Unidos gang, who allegedly mistook the young men for rival gangsters.

The GIEI said that its final hypothesis was that the students may have unwittingly commandeered a bus loaded with heroin that was bound for the United States.

Just two days after he took office on December 1, 2018, President López Obrador signed a decree to create a super commission to conduct a new investigation into the students’ disappearance.

However, it failed to make any significant progress in 2019 and more than 50 people arrested in connection with the case, including more than 20 municipal police, were released from prison.

Parents of the students said in November that they were giving López Obrador two months to produce results or they would increase the intensity of their protests.

Another meeting between the president and parents is scheduled for March 9 by which time it may be known whether the recently-discovered remains are those of the missing students or not.

Source: El Financiero (sp), AFP (en).

 

New data reveals that 61,000 people have disappeared, 50% more than reported

A year ago the government said 40,000 people were missing

There are more than 61,000 missing persons in Mexico, the federal government said on Monday, a figure significantly higher than that previously reported.

The official number of missing persons is 61,637, the chief of the National Search Commission told a press conference.

“These are data of horror that have a lot of stories of pain behind them, both of families in Mexico and of migrants,” Karla Quintana, head of Mexico’s National Search Commission said.

The figure is 50 percent higher than the 40,180 persons reported as missing in January 2019 by former search commission chief Roberto Cabrera.

Quintana said the sharp increase is due to updated and carefully revised information from state-based Attorney General’s Offices. She explained that 60,053 of the missing persons disappeared between 2006, the year former president Felipe Calderón launched the war against drug cartels, and 2019.

The other disappearances occurred in previous years dating back to 1964, Quintana said.

The search commission chief said the highest number of disappearances have occurred in Tamaulipas, Jalisco, México state, Chihuahua, Nuevo León, Sinaloa, Coahuila, Puebla, Guerrero and Veracruz.

Just under three-quarters of the missing persons are men and just over one-quarter are women.

Almost a third of the total number of missing persons – 19,108 – disappeared between 2016 and 2018, the final three years of the Enrique Peña Nieto government.

In 2019, the first full year of the government led by President López Obrador, 9,164 people were reported as missing of whom 5,184 have not been located, said human rights undersecretary Alejandro Encinas. Among the number of people who disappeared last year and still haven’t been found are 1,177 women, he said.

Encinas also said that 1,124 bodies have been found in 873 hidden graves since López Obrador took office in December 2018.

Of that number, 395 have been identified and 243 have been returned to the victims’ families, he said, adding that the highest number of hidden graves have been uncovered in Sinaloa, Colima, Veracruz, Sonora and Jalisco.

The official said that between December 1, 2018 and December 31, 2019, authorities have carried out searches for hidden graves at 519 different locations across practically all of Mexico’s 32 federal entities. In February last year, Encinas described the country as a whole as an “enormous hidden grave.”

He said on Monday that the federal government will extend an invitation to the United Nations Committee on Enforced Disappearances to have its members visit Mexico this year.

The government was criticized last month for failing to keep its promise to allow the committee to visit the country and thus open up Mexico’s investigative processes to international scrutiny.

Source: El Universal (sp), El Financiero (sp).

Puerto Rican authorities suspend classes due to earthquake- “This is not a natural disaster.” says government employee

by the El Reportero‘s wire services

 

Puerto Rican Education Secretary Eligio Hernández reported this Wednesday that classes in the public education system will not resume until the evaluation of damage to schools has been completed following yesterday’s strong earthquake.

Hernández published on Twitter that the process of evaluation of schools by structural engineers started today.

Earlier, Puerto Rican Governor Wanda Vazquez posted that the semester will resume on January 13 because of the need to ‘achieve a complete evaluation of school structures throughout #PuertoRico.’

The 6.5 magnitude quake of this Tuesday, whose epicenter was located in the south of the country, was the strongest Puerto Rico has suffered in over a century, experts noted.

The earthquake, which occurred at 02:24 local time and left at least one person dead, was followed by a series of lower intensity events.

Vázquez decreed a state of emergency and activated the National Guard to aid in the identification of bridges, homes and roads that could be have been damaged by the quake, which initially left almost 250,000 people without power.

Over 1,800 earthquakes of different magnitude have occurred on Puerto Rican soil and its surroundings since December 28, something that experts described as ‘unusual.’

According to local media, the Commissioner of the Bureau of Emergency and Disaster Management, Carlos Acevedo, warned on Sunday that one of the concerns of the government is the approximately 150,000 homes built on stilts that could collapse if an earthquake of great magnitude occurs.

 

ECLAC debates causes of migration in Mexico and Central America

The Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), Alicia Barcena, on Wednesday revealed the economic and social causes of migration in Mexico and the three States south of this country.

The Mexican official mentioned insufficient economic growth in Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador among the main reasons for their citizens to leave their places of origin.

On presenting the Northern Central America-Mexico Comprehensive Development Plan, at a meeting of ambassadors and consuls from those nations, Barcena noted that ‘the 10 percent of the population with the highest incomes in Central America and Mexico earns 70 times more than the poorest 10 percent.’

The ECLAC chief also referred to the wage differential as among the causes of migration in that geographic area, where the average salary is ten times lower than in the United States.

Another cause of migration is violence, as this region is considered ‘one of the most violent in the world, with even more homicides than the Middle East.’

ECLAC studies also mention the high demographic growth in the region among the causes of migration, above all among young men aged 15-29, who also ‘get caught up in drug trafficking and violence.’

Barcena referred to droughts and floods, due to ‘brutal climate change in the north triangle of Central America,’ which has caused huge corn and coffee crop losses, among other items. According to Barcena, the key issue in the new program approved by the United Nations is that ‘migration has to be an option, not an obligation, and a space for common development has to be built among the nine states south of Mexico and the three countries in the north of Central America.’