FEBRUARY 28, 2018
Korakuen Hall, Tokyo, Japan
• Daniel Roman vs. Ryo Matsumoto
MARCH 3, 2018
MSG,, New York, NY, USA (HBO)
• Sergey Kovalev vs. Igor Mikhalkin
• Dmitry Bivol vs. Sullivan Barrera
Sheffield Arena, Yorkshire, UK (Sky)
• Kell Brook vs. Siarhei Rabchanka
• Gamal Yafai vs. Gavin McDonnell
• David Allen vs. TBA
MARCH 10, 2018
StubHub, Carson, CA, USA (ESPN / ESPN Deportes)
• Oscar Valdez vs. TBA
• Jessie Magdaleno vs. TBA
MARCH 17, 2018
MSG, NY, NY, USA (ESPN / ESPN Deportes)
• Jose Carlos Ramirez vs. Amir Imam
• Felix Verdejo vs. TBS
• Teofimo Lopez vs. TBS
• Michael Conlan vs. TBS
Star City, Pyrmont, Australia (Epicentre.tv)
• Darragh Foley vs. TBA
Boxing Schedule – The Sport of Gentlemen
Brazilian Carnaval Ball 2018 The Official Ball
Compiled by the El Reportero’s staff
Celebrating 51 years. Featuring Neguinho Da Beija Flor Samba School, Aquarela Samba Dancers and Dj Double B Playing the Authentic Carnaval Music and Funk.
Non Stop music and dancing. Friday Feb 23, at Broadway Studios, 435 Broadway St. San Francisco. Advanced tickets available in the Brazilian Stores in the Bay Area and online, more info at 415-425-7242 http://www.brazilianevents.com
Bal Theatre – Tranquility House Fundraiser
You are all invited to attend a benefit fundraiser for Tranquility House. This is a non-profit organization that gives second chances to those in need by providing a sober living environment and helping them find jobs. Headlining this amazing event is the Latin Rock band Malo Anthology, which features original and former members of Malo, including Richard Bean, who wrote and sang the Billboard charting classic Suavecito.
Also performing is Bay Area Latin Jazz legend Pete Escovedo along with his son Juan Escovedo and their all star band.
Dr. Groove will also be among these amazing entertainers! Celebrity Comedian Dennis Gaxiola will be opening the evening with hilarious stories and tidbits that will get you out of your chair in laughter! – Sat Feb 24, at Bal Theater, SF.
Tickets are selling fast so get yours ASAP by visiting
http://www.baltheatre.com/event/be194d5b11b860f61ff3f1f87f36ec64 or tharecovery.org or Call 510-878-1675. At Bal Theatre, 14808 E .14th St., San Leandro, California.
Teatro Nahual presents “The imperfect married”
The imperfect married presented by Teatro Nahual represents the daily life of a married couple living in the suburbs of a large city.
This marriage can represent the living image of any couple that apparently has an admirable relationship, children, a house, comforts and a stable job; where the husband is the provider of the family.
However, a seemingly stable family life can be turned into a pandora’s box by closing the doors of the house and entering into privacy where the probable and unusual human weaknesses manifest in a faraus manner.
At 7:30 p.m. on Feb. 24, and March 3, 10 and 17; on Sundays March 11 and 18.
Discount for teachers and students with school credentials. Tickets $20.00.
Premier: $30 (includes reception and be part of the raffle).
Ticket sales at the door, online and by telephone 650-793-0783, info@teatronahual.org.
At the MACLA (MACLA / Latin American Art and Culture Movement), 510 South 1st Street San Jose.
The Gustafer Yellowgold Show at the SFPL
Grammy® nominated Morgan Taylor brings music and animation to the Main Library
San Francisco Public Library is excited to hold the only free Bay Area appearance of the Gustafer Yellowgold show. Described by the New York Times as “Dr. Seuss Meets ‘Yellow Submarine’,” Grammy® nominated artist, Morgan Taylor, brings his one-of-a-kind music and animation show to the Main Library on Sunday, Feb. 25.
Taylor will be featuring material from his new album “Brighter Side” alongside classic fan favorites. Taylor’s funny and touching multimedia presentation about a little guy from the Sun who landed in the Minnesota woods has loads of adult crossover appeal, making Gustafer Yellowgold’s show a truly all-ages experience.
“Coming to the Bay Area and seeing the familiar and new faces in my audiences is always a highlight of my year,” exclaimed Morgan Taylor. “Performing in the library enables me to reach a much more diverse audience, where I can make a connection with parents and children who might not otherwise get a chance to catch one of my performances.” When asked whether Baconstein will make an appearance, Taylor replied: “In more ways than one. Oh, that magic meat.”
Funded by Friends of the San Francisco Public Library. All programs at the Library are free.
Sunday, Feb. 25, 2 p.m., Koret Auditorium, Main Library, 100 Larkin Street, San Francisco.
Black Panther breaks records, maintains box office lead
by the El Reportero’s news services
Disney and Marvel’s Black Panther’ continued an impressive run, adding $100 million in its second weekend in U.S. theaters for a total of 700 million, becoming only the fourth movie to achieve the feat.
The film also topped past rivals such as ‘Marvel’s Avengers’ and ‘Marvel’s Avengers’ to claim the title of second best sophomore weekend in U.S. box office history.
Worldwide, Black Panther’ added $191.8M with $108.0M of that coming from North American territories over the weekend, according to figures compiled by comScore.
To date, in all markets, the film has racked up an impressive $704m in cumulative revenue in just two weeks.
The Tsars of the Russian Ballet for the First Time in Bolivia
The Tsars of the Russian Ballet will exhibit their art for the first time in Bolivia with three presentations in the departments of La Paz and Cochabamba, local media reported today.
The cast is named for awards received in international ballet competitions, as published by the newspaper Cambio.
The presentations will take place on March 6 and 7 at the Alberto Saavedra Pérez Municipal Theater in La Paz, and on March 8 in Cochabamba, at the Coliseum of the Santa María German School.
The program of the famous cast includes the interpretation of part of the universal repertoire of classical ballet, with pieces like The Swan Lake, The Corsair, The Nutcracker, The Bayadera, The Death of the Swan and other beautiful works performed by notable dancers of the imperial theaters Russians.
Among the soloists are Ivan Sitnikov, Eugenia Abratzova, Yulia Makhalina, Kirill Safin and Sergei Kononenko.
The Zares that visit Bolivia delighted the audience in venues such as the Marinsky in St. Petersburg, the Paris Opera, the Opera of Sydney, the great theaters in New York and the most important in Latin America, including Buenos Aires, Mexico, Bogotá and Lima, as well as in the Middle East, Japan and China.
Cuban Dance Company Receives Nomination to British Award
Cuban dance company Acosta Danza celebrated its nomination to British Robert Robson Award in the Manchester Theatre Awards Monday.
With such recognition, the Cuban company is being inserted in the category for Best Dance Show, together with British emblematic English National Ballet and the Rambert Dance Company, just two years after the foundation of the Cuban dance company.
The Manchester Theatre Awards are among the most prestigious awards of the performing arts in the United Kingdom. For winning, the specialized critics selects the best shows presented in Greater Manchester (county of Manchester) during the year.
In 2017, Acosta Danza performed with critical and public success on October 12 and 14, at The Lowry Theater, in the City of Salford, in Manchester.
The young group presented a program composed of the pieces El cruce sobre el Niagara, by Marianela Boán; Belles Lettres, by Justin Peck; Imponderable, by Goyo Montero; Mermaid, choreography by Sidi Larbi and Twelve, by Jorge Crecis.
Acosta Danza aims to offer integrating shows from the contemporary and the neoclassical, without discarding other expressions, times and styles of dance art.
Jenny and the Mexicats celebrate 10 years with US and Europe tour
Jenny and the Mexicats, a group that demonstrates to us that there are no borders when it comes to music, announced their return to the U.S. with a new tour that will take them to 19 cities starting on February 28. The first stop will be in Washington, D.C. and the dates will intertwine with their European tour where the quartet’s growth and popularity has intensified in the last year, forcing them to extend their tours and their stay.
The group formed by an English woman, two Mexicans and a Spaniard, celebrate their 10th anniversary.
Jenny and the Mexicats is a group that does not look like any other. It is a fusion of nationalities and personalities; a band that had its beginnings in Madrid under the name of Pachucos y la Princesa in June 2008 with a very particular history: demonstrating serendipity at its finest.
The untold history of Mexico’s Afro-descendants
NOTE FROM THE EDITOR
Dear readers:
The nation is currently celebrating Black History Month, and to join such honoring of the people of African descend, El Reportero has the honor to bring to you the following article, written and researched by Alvaro Amador Muwhich highlights the contribution of those invisible communities of African descent – beyond the US border: the afromexicanos.
2015 census revealed nearly 1.4 million Mexicans of African descend
by Alvaro Amador Muniz
Until a few years ago, most Mexicans had no real idea about how many Afro-descendants existed, where they live or how they live.
Afro-descendants are part of who we are as a country, part of our history, our culture and ethnic background but most Mexicans do not know much about them. We do not know about our third root.
In 2015, for the first time in Mexican history, the Institute of Geography and Statistics (Inegi) included in the national census a question asking respondents whether they consider themselves to be afromexicano.
The results surprised many. NGOs and academics realized they had seriously underestimated their pre-census population estimates.
There are almost 1.4 million Mexicans who consider themselves to be afromexicanos. The majority of them live in the coastal areas of Oaxaca, Veracruz and Guerrero, but Mexico City and Baja California Sur also have important afromexicano settlements.
In 2015, the afromexicanos won an important victory: they went from an invisible and almost mythological status to a recognized ethnic group in Mexico.
But the importance of the afromexicano community in Mexico goes beyond numbers. What the census results don’t tell us is that without the cultural and historical contributions of the afromexicanos, Mexico would not be where it is today. So to celebrate Black History Month and as a humble attempt to keep alive this vital part of Mexican history, let’s do a quick dive into the untold history of the afromexicanos:
During the colonization
The first African slaves were brought to Mexico in 1519 by Hernán Cortés and some were granted their freedom and rewarded with land because of their loyalty and bravery during the colonization battles.
One of the most renowned cases was that of Juan Garrido, who was very close to Cortés and was compensated with the prestigious job of guardian of the aqueduct of Mexico City in Chapultepec.
The first slavery-free community of the new world
In 1570, before the first slaves were brought to the United States, Gaspar Yanga, an African slave from Gabon, rebelled against his Spanish master and escaped to the mountains of the state of Veracruz. There, he and a group of escaped slaves established, with the recognition of the Spanish crown, the first slavery-free town of the new world.
There is no exact number of the African and African descendant populations during the first years of the Spanish colony, but some historians believe that the number of Africans living in Mexico superseded that of the Europeans.
War of Independence
During the Mexican War of Independence in 1810 the leader of the independence movement, Miguel Hidalgo, released a decree that abolished any kind of slavery. This action was aimed at weakening the economic and political power of the Spanish slave owners that opposed Mexican independence and to add the freed slaves to the troops fighting for independence.
In 1813, after the death of Miguel Hidalgo, José María Morelos took over the leadership of the independence movement and again declared illegal all forms of slavery.
Independent Mexico and the first Afro-descendant president in North America
In 1821 Mexico declared its independence from Spain and the anti-slavery spirit of the draftsmen of independence made its way into the first Mexican constitution in 1824. The abolitionist laws were, unfortunately, a dead letter during the first years of independent Mexico.
The economy of the northern states, especially Texas, depended heavily on slave labor and those states refused to follow the abolitionist laws.
In 1829 President Vicente Guerrero, an Afromexicano himself, vigorously enforced anti-slavery laws. Guerrero, in a conciliatory spirit, offered to pay the slave owners for the freedom of their slaves.
Black Seminoles or Mascogos in Coahuila
Not all the afromexicanos came to Mexico during colonial times. During the Seminole Wars in the United States some of the freed slaves settled with the Seminoles in what was then slavery-free Florida and fought against Andrew Jackson’s encroaching troops as he moved in to take the newly-purchased Florida back to a slavery state.
They fought for their freedom alongside the Seminole tribe in Florida but were eventually forced to abandon their land and relocate to Arkansas and Oklahoma. Some slaves took a small detour from the march to the west and escaped to northern Mexico where they had heard slavery was illegal.
In 1867, President Benito Juárez granted those refugees Mexican nationality and gave them the land that many still occupy in Múzquiz, Coahuila.
Maximiliano and the last attempt to reestablish slavery in Mexico
This might disappoint those of you who think Maximilian I was a kind-hearted “emperor” but it needs to be told. In 1865, in a desperate attempt to add allies to his fading cause, Maximilian attempted to reestablish slavery.
This was aimed at attracting the recently-defeated American confederates to northern Mexico as settlers in order to keep his “empire” afloat. Maximiliano met his end with Juárez’s firing squad, and the laws he signed never took effect.
Today
Some important victories have been won recently in favor of the afro-descendants in Mexico. The results of the census have triggered public awareness campaigns like #SoyAfro by the National Council to Prevent Discrimination (Conapred) and NGOs.
Also, places like Veracruz, Guerrero and Mexico City have included the afromexicanos as an ethic group in their local constitutions. But there is still a long road ahead. It is important that we learn, share and divulge this part of history so we can keep the ball of equality rolling forward.
“It is important for all of us to appreciate where we come from and how that history has really shaped us in ways that we might not understand.” —United States Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
Alvaro Amador Muniz hails from Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, is an honorary Tennessean and an avid basketball player currently living in Mexico City. He can be contacted at alvaroamadormu@gmail.com.
CORRECTION: The original version of this pieces stated that Hernán Cortés was around in 1919, a mistake of four centuries in magnitude.
The health benefits of beets
by Ben Fuchs
I’ve been hearing a lot of commercials about beets lately, the latest darling of the nutritional supplement industry. Supplements using beets, particularly beet juice and beet powder, look to exploit recent research findings focused on the nutrient-dense tap root’s ability to enhance athletic performance, strength and endurance.
The secret to the beet boost for athletes and workout warriors is in its nitrogen content, specifically in the form of nitrates and nitrites. Despite the conventional wisdom that these chemicals are best avoided, as it turns out the misunderstood molecules have been a valued medicinal asset for doctors and health care professionals for over a hundred years. They’re sources of nitrogen and, when transformed into the gas hormone nitric oxide (NO), they become a potent hormone-like biochemical that plays various important roles in keeping the body healthy. NO is especially important for heart health. It lowers blood pressure, supports the flow of fluid through the circulatory system, improves male sexual performance, fights cancer, destroys tumors and is anti-inflammatory. In addition to being a source of nitric oxide, nitrates may play an important role in eye health, particularly for patients dealing with glaucoma, a leading cause of blindness that affects 3 million Americans. A 1998 article published in the journal Vision concluded that the use of therapeutic nitrates in glaucoma patients may offer a protective effect. More recently, a study published in JAMA Ophthalmology found that American adults who ate the most nitrates were 21 percent less likely than those who ate the least nitrates to develop open-angle glaucoma by the time they were in their 60s and 70s.
But it’s not just nitrogen that makes the beet such a nutritionally significant vegetable. The red root is a source of many other important salubrious substances including betalins, the natural pigment that’s responsible for the vegetable’s rosy hue. Betalins, whose name is derived from the beets Latin name beta vulgaris, act as a type of molecular cleaning crew, speeding up the removal of toxins and dead cells. Betalins can help fight cancer and are, according to a September 2005 article in the journal Phytotherapy Research, particularly important for liver health.
The beet’s nutritional value doesn’t stop there. They’re rich in antioxidants, electrolytes like potassium and magnesium. They’re packed with B-vitamins, especially folic acid. They’ve got Vitamin C, and they’re loaded with fiber. They’re also important sources of carotenoids, particularly lycopene, which can protect the skin from the damaging effects of the sun.
You don’t have to ingest beets to enjoy their skin health benefits. You can apply their juice topically. Blend some up in a VitaMix with some juice or apple cider vinegar and you can make your own beet based skin care masks and toners. The alpha hydroxy acids from the vinegar and citrus will smooth and soften the skin, helping drive the beet’s vitamins, minerals and phytonutrients past the surface to the lower levels. This enhances their protective and detoxifying effects, helping prevent wrinkles, dark spots and other signs of age inducing sun damage.
Did You Know?
– You can use beets to test your digestive system. Stools should have a red hue 12-24 hours after eating the vegetable. If the rosy color doesn’t appear within a day or so you may be dealing with delayed transit time (constipation) and food stagnation.
– Beet juice makes a great hair dye. Cut up 1-2 beets into quarters, add water and mix in a food processor or blender. Use cheesecloth to filter out the juice and whip it into 2-4 cups of of melted coconut oil. Let cool and apply to hair as a mask. Let sit for 1-2 hours and rinse and wash hair as usual.
Even though they contain sugar, beets make a great diet friendly dessert. A cup only has 75 calories and can be used to sweeten pies, juices, or as a tasty low-cal sweet to finish off a meal.
– The surface of fresh, organic beets contains beneficial microorganisms. When you prepare them, rinse off the dirt, but don’t scrape off the skin and you’ll get the benefits of the good bacteria. If you juice your beets and add some bacterial starter culture (available on the internet), you can make your own probiotic rich beet beverage (it’s called “kvass”).
– The Romans used beets as a natural aphrodisiac, and for good reason. Although they didn’t know it at the time, the sweet root is a source of boron, an important mineral involved in the production of libido boosting testosterone.
Top lawmakers call for investigation of DEA-led unit in Mexico
Democratic leaders in the House and the Senate cited ProPublica’s reporting into the DEA’s role in two operations in Mexico that resulted in dozens, perhaps hundreds, of deaths
by Ginger Thompson
ProPublica
Powerful Democrats in both the House and Senate called Tuesday for an investigation into Drug Enforcement Administration-led operations in Mexico that played a role in triggering violent drug cartel attacks. These attacks left dozens, possibly hundreds, of people dead or missing, including many who had nothing to do with the drug trade.
The call was issued in a letter signed by ranking members of the committees that oversee America’s foreign law enforcement operations and draws heavily on two stories last year by ProPublica and National Geographic that documented the attacks and the DEA’s role. One story reconstructed a 2011 massacre by the Zetas cartel in the Mexican state of Coahuila. It revealed that the wave of killings was unleashed after sensitive information obtained during a DEA operation wound up in the hands of cartel leaders, who ordered a wave of retaliation against suspected traitors.
A second story investigated a 2010 cartel attack on a Holiday Inn in Monterrey, Mexico, and found that it, too, was linked to a DEA surveillance operation. Four hotel guests and a hotel clerk, none of whom were involved with the drug trade, were kidnapped and never seen again.
In both cases, the DEA never revealed its involvement or helped in the investigation of the slaughter of Mexican citizens. Until contacted by ProPublica, the family members of the victims never knew why their loved ones had been targeted.
Both operations involved a Mexican federal police unit that is specially trained and vetted by the DEA to work with U.S. law enforcement. ProPublica’s reporting found that despite that scrutiny, the Sensitive Investigative Unit had a record of leaking information to violent and powerful drug traffickers. The DEA, ProPublica found, had long been aware of this corruption and failed to address it, even when innocent lives were lost. The agency has similar units in 12 other countries.
“These operations raise serious questions about the practices of DEA-trained and funded SIU’s,” the congressional letter said, “and point to the need for greater accountability for these vetted units.”
The letter was signed by Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, vice chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, who has long pursued accountability for the DEA’s operations abroad, as well as Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee and one of the country’s leading authorities on national security matters, Rep. Eliot L. Engel, the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Rep. Jerrold Nadler, the leading Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee. The two representatives are from New York, and their committees oversee the State and Justice departments.
The legislators asked the inspectors general at the Justice and State departments to investigate the attacks in Monterrey and Coahuila, as well as the DEA’s overall work with vetted units. They asked eight detailed questions about the two deadly incidents, including how information about the operations was leaked to the cartels and whether the DEA attempted to provide assistance to the families of those kidnapped or killed and whether the United States Ambassador to Mexico had been fully informed.
“In light of these incidents,” the letter said, “we believe that a thorough investigation into the practices of the DEA’s vetted units is essential.”
For two decades, the “Sensitive Investigative Unit Program” has been the DEA’s workaround method of battling drugs with foreign partners it doesn’t always trust. The agency sets up a unit under its supervision, choosing members from the host country’s police forces. Then it trains these foreign officers — often in the U.S. — polygraphs them, and, in some cases, works alongside them in the field.
Administrators at the agency have hailed them as the “bread and butter” of the DEA’s activities abroad.
In Mexico, however, the SIU has been plagued by corruption from the start. Since 2000, at least two supervisors have been assassinated after their identities and locations were leaked to drug traffickers by SIU members, according to allegations by current and former DEA agents who worked in Mexico. Earlier this year, another SIU supervisor, Ivan Reyes Arzate, flew to Chicago and surrendered to U.S. authorities, who charged him with collaborating with drug traffickers.
In interviews, current and former DEA agents who worked with the unit didn’t dispute the corruption within the Mexican unit’s ranks. Several agents said that part of “the game” of working in Mexico involves understanding that the vetted unit — and every other Mexican law enforcement agency — might leak to a specific cartel and reliably help pursue another. The trick, they said, was figuring out which cartel the vetted unit was helping, and then using the unit to pursue that cartel’s rivals.
When it works, the agents said, they bring down a cartel kingpin and garner headlines. But the investigations by ProPublica made clear that the game sometimes has tragic consequences, about which the DEA has remained largely silent.
Both Engel and Leahy have been seeking accountability for U.S. foreign law enforcement operations for years. Engel was among more than a dozen legislators who signed a letter to the Justice and State departments last year, expressing concern about the DEA’s role in the massacre in Coahuila. And Leahy was a driving force behind government efforts to investigate a botched DEA operation in Honduras in 2012 that left four unarmed people dead, and another four injured.
Earlier this year, Leahy sent a letter directly to the DEA’s Acting Administrator, Robert W. Patterson, to convey his concerns about ProPublica’s reports. The letter contained 22 questions about the DEA’s work with SIUs; questions that Leahy said warranted response, “given the reported history of corruption and misconduct by some members of the SIU.”
(Ginger Thompson is a senior reporter at ProPublica who writes about the drug war).
Almost 1,000 immigrants intercepted in México
by the El Reportero’s wire services
The Mexican Federal Police intercepted 137 Central American migrants on the Tampico-Victoria Highway in the north of the country, adding up to a thousand undocumented migrants registered by the authorities so far this year.
The migrants traveled in the box of a trailer in total overcrowding and in the group there were also minors.
Mexican authorities expressed their concern over the increase in undocumented persons from Central America who use Mexican territory to enter the United States illegally.
The groups are each time more numerous, as well as the number of children, said sources from the Ministry of Interior.
US ambassador to Mexico unexpectedly resigns amid increased tensions under Trump
Roberta Jacobson, the US ambassador to Mexico, announced her resignation on Thursday, saying on Twitter she would be leaving her post at the beginning of May “in search of other opportunities.”
CABEI Board of Directors Meets in Nicaragua
The board of directors of the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (CABEI) is holding a meeting today in this capital, to address several strategies for the current year, among other institutional issues.
Vice President Rosario Murillo said she will address some operational issues related to the approval of loans for Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua.
Murillo also said that President, Daniel Ortega, will receive today and tomorrow the CABEI board of directors, who will also pay posthumous tribute during a solemn session to Silvio Conrado. Conrado was the Nicaraguan director of this regional organization until his death.
The Central American Bank for Economic Integration, founded in 1960, aims to promote integration and development of Central America, being one of its main suppliers of resources.
Its founding members are Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica, while Panama, the Dominican Republic and Belize joined as non-founding regional countries; and Mexico, Taiwan, Argentina, Colombia, Spain are non-regional members.
Federal judge whom Trump called ‘Mexican’ clears way for border wall
The federal judge once slammed by President Donald Trump as being a “Mexican” who was incapable of being impartial has sided with Trump in his bid to move ahead with construction of a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.
Judge Gonzalo P. Curiel on Tuesday rejected arguments by the state of California and a coalition of environmental groups, who said the Trump administration had improperly ignored environmental laws in its push to build the wall.
Curiel said in his 101-page ruling that such decisions should be left to other branches of government, not the judiciary. He quoted U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts in saying political matters “are entrusted to our Nation’s elected leaders, who can be thrown out of office if the people disagree with them. It is not our job to protect the people from the consequences of their political choices.” (by James Rainey).
Measure passes the Assembly Floor to urge trump to reverse decision ending TPS for Salvadorans
(Sacramento) – Today, Assemblymember Wendy Carrillo (D-Los Angeles) presented her first legislative measure, House Resolution (HR) 69, on the Assembly Floor. As the only member of the state legislature of Salvadoran background it is a personal issue she is uniquely qualified to lead on. The resolution urges the President to reverse his decision to terminate the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) designation of Salvadorans and to work with Congress to find a path to legal status for these valuable members of our community. HR 69 was adopted on a bipartisan vote.
An estimated 200,000 Salvadorans protected by TPS found refuge in the United States, and 49,000 found a home in California. They are a key part of the workforce, with labor participation rates of 88 percent, and of our communities, with over 190,000 U.S.-born children living here. Tearing hundreds of thousands of immigrants from their families exemplifies just how callous and out of touch the Trump administration is.
Scotus breathes new life to DACA program, at least temporarily
High Court’s decision means DACA renewals can continue
Los Angeles — The California Dream Network (CDN), the youth organizing arm for the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA), celebrated the Supreme Court’s decision not to rule on the DACA injunction Monday, Feb. 26, until the 9th District Court of Appeals rules on the case.
The following is a statement for Angelica Salas, CHIRLA Executive Director:
“This is great news for the 800,000 DACA recipients who are eyeing President Trump’s self-imposed March 5th deadline with great concern and trepidation. The court’s decision not to stop the injunction for now allows many more young immigrants to renew their DACA work permits.
President Trump can ameliorate the anxiety, fears, and distrust many young immigrants and their families are feeling by extending DACA indefinitely and by working with Congress to pass a reasonable, fair, and permanent solution.
CHIRLA encourages young immigrants whose DACA work permits have expired or are set to expire within the next few months to renew them at a community organization or with an immigration attorney of trust.”
Mexico-US relations ‘frozen’ after testy call
Plans for a March meeting are scrapped after Trump loses his temper: report
by the El Reportero’s wire services
A testy phone call between Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto and his United States counterpart Donald Trump was the catalyst for a joint decision to call off a planned meeting between the pair, according to a report published Saturday in the Washington Post.
The Post said that Trump’s border wall proposal took up a considerable portion of a roughly 50-minute conversation between the two leaders last Tuesday and was — as in the past — a major source of contention.
According to Mexican and U.S. officials who spoke to the newspaper on the condition of anonymity, Trump refused to agree to publicly affirm Mexico’s repeated assertion that it will not pay for the construction of the wall.
Trump “lost his temper” during the call, one Mexican official said, while U.S. officials instead described the president as frustrated and exasperated because he believed it was unreasonable for Peña Nieto to expect him to walk away from his campaign promise that Mexico would pay for the wall.
Both sides agreed, however, that Peña Nieto’s desire to avoid public embarrassment and Trump’s refusal to make that assurance was the crucial factor that led to the cancelation of the bilateral meeting that had been slated to take place in March.
The decision dashes arrangements that were agreed to in Washington earlier this month between a delegation of Mexican officials and a team of Trump advisers, led by the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.
The Mexican team, led by Foreign Affairs Secretary Luis Videgaray, left the White House on February 14 believing it had an agreement that wall funding would not be brought up in a meeting between the two presidents.
According to sources cited by prominent Mexican journalist Carlos Loret de Mola, the call not only led to the meeting’s cancellation but has also caused a deterioration in relations between foreign affairs staff in Mexico and their counterparts in Washington.
In an opinion piece published today on the news website Debate, the well-known columnist and news anchor wrote: “I don’t know if they no longer take calls from Videgaray in the White House but what some sources have confided to me is that at other levels of the Secretariat of Foreign Affairs, bilateral contacts have been broken.”
Loret de Mola described the climate of relations between the two countries as “frozen.”
Prior to the news that Peña Nieto would not travel to Washington, some political analysts in Mexico said meeting Trump would be risky given the U.S. president’s propensity for verbal combat and one-upmanship.
The Mexican president, in contrast, prefers to avoid conflict in face-to-face meetings.
With the presidential election just over four months away, there is a risk that any perception of kowtowing to the U.S. could not only be further damaging to Peña Nieto’s already embattled administration but also to the chances of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party’s candidate, José Antonio Meade.
A vast majority of Mexicans consider the wall proposal as both offensive and racist and several members of the federal government have been at pains to assert that Mexico will under no circumstances pay for it.
Peña Nieto and Trump previously clashed on the same issue in another phone call that took place just a week after the latter’s inauguration in January 2017. They met on the sidelines at a G20 meeting in Germany in July but neither leader has visited the other in Washington or Mexico City since Trump became president.
A former Mexican ambassador to the United States told the Post that Trump’s unrelenting attitude towards building the wall and making Mexico pay for it has come at a cost to the wider relationship between the two countries.
“The problem is that President Trump has painted himself, President Peña Nieto and the bilateral relationship into a corner,” Arturo Sarukhan said.
“Even from the get-go, the idea of Mexico paying for the wall was never going to fly. His relationship with Mexico isn’t strategically driven. It’s not even business; it’s personal, driven by motivations and triggers, and that’s a huge problem. It could end up with the U.S. asking itself, ‘who lost Mexico?’” he explained.
However, despite the wall issue and NAFTA renegotiation talks that have also been highly contentious, Mexican Foreign Affairs Secretary Luis Videgaray said earlier this month that the bilateral relationship between the two neighbors is closer under Trump than it has been previously.
“I think in many ways the relationship is more fluid,” Videgaray remarked while standing alongside U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in Mexico City. “It’s closer than it was with previous administrations, which might be surprising to some people, but that’s a fact of life.”
According to U.S officials, Peña Nieto might make another attempt to visit Washington later in the year and there is also a possibility that he will meet with Trump on the sidelines of the Summit of the Americas which will be held in Lima, Peru, in April.
But with the political stakes already high and rising further as the July 1 election approaches, there is a possibility that Peña Nieto and Trump will not hold formal face-to-face talks before the former vacates the president’s office in December.
Source: The Washington Post (en), Debate (sp)
Abandoned migrants freed from trailer
Shouts alerted passing soldiers, who found 103 people inside
A journey north by 103 undocumented Central American migrants was cut short yesterday after they were abandoned inside a locked trailer by their smugglers.
The trailer was left on the side of a highway near Ciudad Camargo, Tamaulipas — about 10 kilometers from the United States border — where it remained abandoned for over 12 hours.
During a routine patrol, Army personnel heard shouts coming from inside the vehicle.
Inside, soldiers found 67 adults and 36 minors, 12 of whom were traveling north unaccompanied. Some of the travelers were starting to show signs of dehydration and asphyxiation at the time of their rescue.
Staff from the National Immigration Institute (INM) provided food, water and medication to 91 Honduras nationals, seven from Guatemala and five from El Salvador.
Child Protection officials took the 36 minors into custody, transferring the 12 who were unaccompanied to the DIF family services agency.
Source: Milenio (sp)
Boxing Schedule – The Sport of Gentlemen
FEBRUARY 16, 2018
Reno-Sparks, Reno, NV, USA (ESPN / ESPN Deportes)
• Raymundo Beltran vs. Paulus Moses
FEBRUARY 17, 2018
Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas, NV, USA (Showtime)
• Danny Garcia vs. Brandon Rios
• David Benavidez vs. Ronald Gavril
Manchester Arena, Lancashire, UK (ITV PPV)
• George Groves vs. Chris Eubank Jr
• Ryan Walsh vs. Isaac Lowe
• Arfan Iqbal vs. Simon Vallily
FEBRUARY 24, 2018
Forum, Inglewood, CA, USA (HBO)
• Wisaksil Wangek vs. Juan Francisco Estrada
• Brian Viloria vs. Artem Dalakian
• Carlos Cuadras vs. McWilliams Arroyo
FEBRUARY 28, 2018
Korakuen Hall, Tokyo, Japan
• Daniel Roman vs. Ryo Matsumoto
Teatro Nahual presents The imperfect married
by the El Reportero’s staff
The imperfect married presented by Teatro Nahual represents the daily life of a married couple living in the suburbs of a large city.
This marriage can represent the living image of any couple that apparently has an admirable relationship, children, a house, comforts and a stable job; where the husband is the provider of the family.
However, a seemingly stable family life can be turned into a pandora’s box by closing the doors of the house and entering into privacy where the probable and unusual human weaknesses manifest in a faraus manner.
At 7:30 p.m. on Feb. 17 (Premier), and the 24, on March 3, 10 and 17; on Sundays March 11 and 18.
Discount for teachers and students with school credentials. Tickets $ 20.00.
Premier: $30 (includes reception and be part of the raffle).
Ticket sales at the door, online and by telephone 650-793-0783, info@teatronahual.org.
At the MACLA (MACLA / Latin American Art and Culture Movement), 510 South 1st Street San Jose.
The Gustafer Yellowgold Show at the SFPL
Grammy® nominated Morgan Taylor brings music and animation to the Main Library
San Francisco Public Library is excited to hold the only free Bay Area appearance of the Gustafer Yellowgold show. Described by the New York Times as “Dr. Seuss Meets ‘Yellow Submarine’,” Grammy® nominated artist, Morgan Taylor, brings his one-of-a-kind music and animation show to the Main Library on Sunday, Feb. 25.
Taylor will be featuring material from his new album “Brighter Side” alongside classic fan favorites. Taylor’s funny and touching multimedia presentation about a little guy from the Sun who landed in the Minnesota woods has loads of adult crossover appeal, making Gustafer Yellowgold’s show a truly all-ages experience.
“Coming to the Bay Area and seeing the familiar and new faces in my audiences is always a highlight of my year,” exclaimed Morgan Taylor. “Performing in the library enables me to reach a much more diverse audience, where I can make a connection with parents and children who might not otherwise get a chance to catch one of my performances.” When asked whether Baconstein will make an appearance, Taylor replied: “In more ways than one. Oh, that magic meat.”
Funded by Friends of the San Francisco Public Library. All programs at the Library are free.
Sunday, Feb. 25, 2 p.m., Koret Auditorium, Main Library, 100 Larkin Street, San Francisco.
Brazilian Carnaval Ball 2018 The Official Ball
Celebrating 51 years. Featuring Neguinho Da Beija Flor Samba School, Aquarela Samba Dancers and Dj Double B Playing the Authentic Carnaval Music and Funk.
Non Stop music and dancing. Friday Feb 23, at Broadway Studios, 435 Broadway St. San Francisco. Advanced tickets available in the Brazilian Stores in the Bay Area and online, more info at 415-425-7242 http://www.brazilianevents.com.
Rabbi Hole, a family drama comedy
Rabbit Hole is a family drama that charts a grieving family through a empathic search for comfort in the darkest of places and a path that will lead them back into the light of day. Becca and Howie Corbett have everything a family could want, until a life-shattering accident turns their world upside down and leaves the couple drifting perilously apart. A play that will make you laugh.
Cast members include Steve Bologna (Breach Once More Artistic Director), Amber Collins-Crane, Mary Price Moore, Mia Romero, and Hector Mendez. Managing Director Lauren Burgat and Company Manager Sara Ramos.
On March 2 – 24, Thurs., Fri., and Sat. at 8 p.m., at Breach Once More / Young Performers Theatre – 2 Marina Blvd, Fort Mason C, #300 San Francisco. For more info call 415.283.8911. www.breachoncemore.org.