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California community groups celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month

Fiestas patrias, National Day, Independence Day—whatever you want to call it, these eight Latin American countries are celebrating it this, and every, September

Suzanne Potter

California News Service

National Hispanic Heritage Month starts this Friday, and runs through Oct. 15. Dozens of events are planned up and down the Golden State to honor California’s more than 15 million Hispanic residents, who make up more than 40 percent of the population.

Fiestas patrias, National Day, Independence Day—whatever you want to call it, these eight Latin American countries are celebrating it this, and every, September. From the fireworks of central Mexico to the military parades and family fiestas in the chilly reaches of South America, here’s how and when the following countries celebrate their independence this month.

Hispanic Heritage Month is celebrated from mid-September to mid-October because Sept. 15 is the anniversary of independence for Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. Mexico and Chile celebrate their independence days on Sept. 16 and 18, respectively.

CA advocates call for crackdown on sales of defective cars

Car dealers regularly advertise cars with unrepaired safety recall defects in California, even though it is illegal for dealers to sell or even offer for sale vehicles that do not comply with one of the hundreds of Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards.

For example, a recent check of CarMax.com revealed a 2020 Lincoln Aviator for sale; a car under recall for intermittent failures of the backup camera which has no permanent fix.

Janette Fennell, president of the nonprofit advocacy group KidsandCars.org, is calling on the Department of Motor Vehicles, which licenses car dealers, to crack down.

“They can issue fines. They can suspend or revoke licenses. They could refer the cases to law enforcement agencies,” Fennell outlined. “But the DMV has failed to exercise that authority. By allowing those blatant violations, they’ve endangered lives.”

The rule on backup cameras came about after drivers unwittingly backed up and hit children. The DMV said it investigates credible allegations made via its online complaint form. CarMax, in a statement, said it shares “vehicle-specific open recall information in-store and online to ensure our customers know about open recalls prior to purchase” and said the current recall repair system is geared to require manufacturers pay for repairs at their dealerships.

CarMax guarantees its vehicles must pass a 125-point inspection.

Rosemary Shahan, president of Consumers for Auto Reliability and Safety, urged people to enter the vehicle identification number into the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration database before they buy, to see if the car is under recall.

“Check the VIN, even if the company said that the vehicle passed an inspection, it may have a lethal safety defect that has been killing people,” Shahan stressed. “And always insist that they fix it before you buy it. But with some of these recalls, there is no fix available yet.”

Consumers can also look up a car’s history using the National Motor Vehicle Title Information System.

The IAPA rejects changes to the Peruvian Penal Code that would affect journalism

by RT Latino

The Inter-American Press Association rejects a modification to Peru’s Penal Code, which would make the press responsible for disseminating reports on social protests.

It requests the Government of Dina Boluarte to withdraw the project, stating that freedom of expression would be affected. The Peruvian Government asked Congress to establish this reform, alleging that it only seeks to penalize the instigators of riots in the demonstrations.

In a statement, the hemispheric organization considered that the measure proposed by the Government of Peruvian President Dina Boluarte is contrary to international principles on freedom of the press, expression and association.

— In other unrelated news:

Brazil’s Justice Minister reiterates that his country could review his accession to the ICC

The official pointed out that “Brazilian diplomacy will know how to evaluate this”

The Minister of Justice and Public Security of Brazil, Flávio Dino, said this Wednesday that his country could review its accession in the International Criminal Court (ICC), something that the president of the South American giant, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, had already commented. .

The official alleged, in conversation with the press in the nation’s Senate, that this decision would respond to the fact that many countries, including some world powers, are not members of the ICC, that is, they are not signatories of the Rome Statute, which gave place to the founding of this court.

“The International Criminal Court was incorporated into Brazilian law, however, many countries in the world, including the most powerful on the planet, did not do so. What President Lula correctly warned is that there is an imbalance in which some countries adhere to the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court and others do not, such as the US, China and other important countries in the world,” the minister said.

He added that this means that there is no “equality between nations in the application of this instrument.”

“It was a warning that the president made and it is clear that Brazilian diplomacy will know how to evaluate this at another time,” he emphasized.

Lula preview

Last Monday, Lula argued that it is necessary to review the country’s accession to the ICC. This after the controversy generated around the fact that a possible trip to Brazil by the president of Russia, Vladimir Putin, to participate in the G20 summit to be held in 2024 in Rio de Janeiro, could end in his arrest.

“I really want to study the ICC issue. Above all, because the US is not a signatory, Russia is not a signatory either. I want to know why Brazil is a signatory to something that the US does not accept,” he said.

However, Lula indicated that the reflection does not mean that his country will abandon the ICC. “I’m not saying I’m going to leave the court. I just want to know… and it just occurred to me. I didn’t even know this court existed,” he added.

At the weekend, Lula assured that Putin would not be arrested if he traveled to Brazil, despite the order issued by the ICC. On Monday he ratified his opinion and stated that the decision would fall to the Judiciary. “That is decided by the courts. Neither the Government nor the National Congress,” he said.

Posters denouncing judges and criminals

A few days ago, posters began to appear on some walls in the streets of the Mission district denouncing by name and surname two sellers of the deadly drug fentanyl, which is responsible for the destruction of thousands of lives and deaths nationwide.

They also denounce the judges as those are responsible for releasing them after being arrested and accused of these crimes. The issue is causing serious debates between those who support his imprisonment and those who advocate their release.

The posters are receiving strong rejection from San Francisco legal professionals, who consider this public complaint as insensitive and lacking information, reported a local alternative media.

Another billboard warns drug traffickers: “We’ve had enough. “If you deal drugs and someone dies, you will go to prison for murder.”

One of the flyers names a defendant, Yomara Gómez, as having been arrested for trafficking fentanyl and released twice in 2020 and once in 2023. It also lists Superior Court Judges Richard Darwin and Patrick Thompson as judges who allegedly ordered her release.

Another flier lists a defendant named Nicol Palma arrested in 2021 and 2022, along with judges Michael Begert and Christine Van Aken who allegedly ordered her release. Both flyers highlight the amount of fentanyl with which the defendants were allegedly arrested and the possible deaths that the drugs could have caused, another local alternative media reported.

On the other hand, we see numbers of people entering stores and especially Walgreens, with long empty bags which they fill up with merchandise without fear of being caught, and calmly leave the store toward the 24th Street BART station and other locations to sell them, without the police interfering. And this happens, according to members of the police and the prosecutor’s office, because the judges’ agenda is not to imprison people, and also the California law that mandates that a person who steals less than $950 is not charged with a felony. These, they say, only receive a minor infraction and citations.

As far as shoplifting is concerned, this is fostering a culture that stealing is not punishable and encouraging many young people to leave their homes to ‘work’ illicitly, which is creating a culture of thieves. Today they rob Walgreens, tomorrow they will go for a bigger loot and end up being jailed for something bigger.

Teaching Sept. 11 – how the events occurred  

Shared from/by by Jeremy Stoddard and Diana Hess

University of Wisconsin-Madison

 Sept. 12, 2023 – The phrase “Never Forget” is often associated with the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. But what does this phrase mean for U.S. students who are too young to remember? What are they being asked to never forget?

As education researchers in curriculum and instruction, we have studied since 2002 how the events of 9/11 and the global war on terror are integrated into secondary level U.S. classrooms and curricula. What we have found is a relatively consistent narrative that focuses on 9/11 as an unprecedented and shocking attack, the heroism of the firefighters and other first responders and a global community that stood behind the U.S. in its pursuit of terrorists.

This narrative is in official curricula, such as textbooks and state standards, as well as in many of the most popular materials teachers report using, such as documentary films.

While honoring the victims and helping a new generation understand the significance of these events are important, we believe there are inherent risks in teaching a simple nationalistic narrative of heroism and evil.

Annual Commemoration

In our survey of 1,047 U.S. secondary teachers conducted in late 2018, we found that the majority of the history teachers tend to teach about 9/11 primarily on the date of the anniversary each year.

Based on the topics being taught, teaching materials and their descriptions of lessons, the instruction emphasizes commemoration of the attacks and victims. Teachers also attempt to help students who were not alive on 9/11 to understand the experience of those who witnessed the events on TV that day. They report sharing their own recollections, showing news or documentary footage of the attacks, and focusing on the details of the day and events that followed.

The surveyed teachers view 9/11 as significant — and believe that teaching it honors the goal to never forget. However, they described the challenge of making time for discussing these events when the standards for their class do not necessarily include them, or include 9/11-related topics only at the end of the school year. As a result, the lessons are often limited to one class session on or near the anniversary. It is also taught out of historical context given that the anniversary arrives at the beginning of the school year and most U.S. history courses start in either the 1400s or the post-U.S. Civil War era.

Risks of a Simple Narrative

Teaching 9/11 as a memorializing event on the anniversary also generally avoids deeper inquiry into the historic U.S. role in the Middle East and Afghanistan. This includes, for example, arming mujahedeen fighters against the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s and aiding Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in the war against Iran also in the ‘80s.

[Related: John Pilger: The Great Game of Smashing Nations and THE ANGRY ARAB: The Lessons of the Taliban]

A more in-depth approach, on the other hand, could explore how U.S. actions contributed to the formation of Al-Qaida, which bombed the World Trade Center in 1993 and later carried out attacks on U.S. embassies in East Africa as well as on the USS Cole, a Navy ship fueling in Yemen, in the years leading up to 9/11.

Simplistic narratives do not help students reflect on the many controversial decisions made by the U.S. and their allies after 9/11, such as using embellished evidence to justify the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

And they potentially reinforce political rhetoric that paints Muslims as potential terrorists and ignore the xenophobic attacks against Muslim Americans after the 9/11 attacks.

Generational Differences Among Teachers

Many teachers, however, do engage students in the complexities of these events. Middle school teachers report including 9/11 as part of their discussion of Islam in a world religions unit; world history teachers describe placing it in the context of the modern Middle East.

For U.S. history courses organized chronologically and using widely available textbooks, the move to standardized curricula and testing in many U.S. states can make it difficult to incorporate current events in meaningful ways.

Teachers tell us they feel there is no room or time to deviate. Many end their course in the 1980s or rush through final decades superficially. Some get creative and tie 9/11 to other terror attacks like the 1886 bombing of a labor protest in Haymarket Square in Chicago.

Younger teachers in particular reported different goals for their students that go beyond commemoration or a focus on the shocking nature of the events of the day. They want young people to recognize how the events and policies that followed 9/11 impacted daily life in ways they might not realize. This reflects their own experience, which was less a vivid memory of the day of the attacks but perhaps constant reminders of the color-coded terrorism threat levels issued by the Department of Homeland Security from 2002 to 2011. They want students to understand the recent evacuation of U.S. personnel from Afghanistan in relation to both 9/11 and the U.S. role in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Or to examine provisions of the USA Patriot Act of 2001, which allowed greater surveillance of U.S. citizens.

Learning from 9/11

If the goal of teaching history is to develop citizens who use knowledge of the past to understand the present and inform future decisions, educators need to help students learn from 9/11 and the war on terror, and not just about them. This means going beyond the facts of the day and the collective memory aspects to also engage in inquiry into why they happened and how the U.S. and other nations reacted.

Teachers can use news footage from that day to commemorate and as a starting point for student inquiry. Students could question why Osama bin Laden’s image was presented within an hour and a half of the first plane hitting the World Trade Center, and how U.S. experts knew he was hiding in Afghanistan.

They can explore the President’s Daily Brief from Aug. 6, 2001, which highlighted the threat of bin Laden planning an attack on the U.S., or the CIA memo from the late 1980s that outlined the dangers of abandoning the mujahedeen.

Many updated resources are available for teachers to draw from for lessons on 9/11. These resources include the perspectives of veterans, Afghan and Iraqi interpreters and refugees, Muslim and Sikh Americans and others not often included.

To “Never Forget” for students today may start with teaching them about aspects of 9/11 that seem to have been overlooked, erased or forgotten.

Jeremy Stoddard is professor of curriculum & instruction, University of Wisconsin-Madison. 

Diana Hess is professor of curriculum & instruction and dean of the School of Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.

 

As temperatures rise, unhoused turn to each other to beat the heat

photo: A homeless encampment stands outside the entrance to St. Vincent de Paul, one of just a few low-barrier shelters in Oakland, CA. (Image via Wikimedia Commons)

Three unhoused veterans of Bay Area summer heat waves say their most important tips for surviving the rising temperatures have come from other unhoused people

by Natalie Hanson

Sep 12, 2023 – Unhoused Californians are among the most at risk from extreme heat, according to government experts. Three homeless veterans of the Bay Area’s summer heat waves say their most important tips for surviving the rising temperatures have come from other unhoused people.

All say it’s the fellowship of others around them and the advice offered by those who have lived longer on the streets that help them face long, hot days.

Dexcelle Camins, originally from Hercules, relies on the resources of St. Vincent de Paul, one of Oakland’s few low-barrier shelters, to find sanctuary through the night. But such shelters routinely check visitors out by midday, leaving them at the mercy of the city in its hottest hours.

Hotter temps, fewer resources

While California agencies have increased investments in heat mitigation measures like cooling centers, unhoused people say the situation differs drastically across counties. Cutbacks in public funding have meant that public resource centers offer less and less to the unhoused. Public libraries are closing or have increasingly limited hours. Some cities open public cooling centers only on days when temperatures peak past 100 degrees Fahrenheit, and close for the night.

Each city also has different ordinances around being unsheltered in public, forcing people in some cases to stay mobile while trying to avoid the heat, noted Camins.

Summers are indeed getting hotter, with the hottest eight years ever recorded having come in the last decade. Heat contributes to about 1,500 U.S. deaths annually, AP reports, and many advocates estimate that half of these fatalities are among the unhoused.

Governor Gavin Newsom’s Exreme Heat Action Plan, backed by over $400 million dollars, has promised to guide California’s response to heatwaves in all counties by helping communities statewide keep their cooling centers open.

“When it gets really hot, usually you just stay outside,” Camins said, adding that at 5 p.m. on most days, a long line forms outside St. Vincent’s along San Pablo Avenue as people bake in the late afternoon sun waiting to enter for the night.

Camins said she learned how to stay cool and safe from older people who had no choice other than to be outdoors during a heat wave.

“I see people staying under bridges and underpasses just to stay cool,” she said. “People like to go to the lake because there’s a strong breeze there… There’s a couple of residents who are older and they’re weaker and get more tired. They stay under a covering or something.”

Some people make the trek to a public library to get through the hottest parts of the day. “Sometimes people just ride the bus and stay cool for a little bit,” she added.

‘Blindsided’ by hotter weather

Jason Gaines, who has lived unsheltered in Oakland for 15 years, previously lived in New York City and Atlanta. “In those other places, they are well prepared in most of the buildings for heat – they either have large fans or air conditioning. Out here, the infrastructure is just not designed for high heat or humidity.”

Gaines said that longtime residents or those who stay in Oakland because of its reputation for mild weather are bound to be surprised by increasingly hot summers as climate change intensifies. “They may be blindsided,” he said.

Gaines also shared tips he’s picked up over the years from other unsheltered people. “Water is number one,” he said. “If you find a public place where there’s cooling and AC, that’s beneficial.”

For the elderly who tend to be less mobile, “People who are in that situation typically have someone who is looking after them,” he said. “But that’s just a guess.”

Parks or anywhere with shade are ideal places, according to Camins, though they are also more likely to be patrolled by police who in some cities – Oakland included – are taking a tougher stance on homeless encampments.

“If you stay out there too long, someone is going to say something,” Camins said, adding that people will often take their chances anyway to survive the heat.

The Incense Man

Tyrone Ford, who just turned 50, has lived in an abandoned car for most of the last year on an alley in San Francisco. He learned about the car from another homeless person who had lived in it undisturbed for two weeks before moving into an apartment.

“We met at a bus stop. When you are on the street it’s easier to initiate conversation with a stranger – you have no one else to talk to,” said Ford, known in the area as the Incense Man because he always carries lighted incense. “It goes everywhere, like the sum of everyone’s prayers.”

Living in the car, just being able to go inside, was far better than living on the sidewalk – except when the sun was right on top of the car. “I would leave the door open a crack and make sure I had water with me. Water and fruit helped me beat the heat.”

Ford said he goes from time to time to St Anthony’s to eat and get a shower, “but they serve so many people, overtime I was just number 300 in line.” The city also has street ambassadors who pass out water and food. “That’s a beautiful thing,” Ford added.

While heat waves can be intense, fentanyl has made things a lot edgier on the streets, he continued, as people are desperate to get the narcotic. “The most difficult thing if you are living on the streets is finding a safe place and finding people who won’t take your stuff.”

Maintaining composure, especially during a heat wave, is critical. “The heat can exacerbate your feelings,” Ford continued. “You have to maintain your center, so you don’t get overwhelmed.”

This story was produced as part of a collaboration with the Office of Community Partnerships and Strategic Communication for their Heat Ready CA public awareness and outreach campaign. Visit Heat Ready CA to learn more.

Additional reporting by Sandy Close.

Ending the suspense: Child trafficking, fentanyl bills can still become law

In rapid-fire votes in suspense file hearings, lawmakers determined the fate of hundreds of bills on crime, transgender students and more

Alexei Koseff and Sameea Kamal

CalMatters

Democratic lawmakers advanced a contentious proposal by one of their Republican colleagues to increase penalties for child sex trafficking, but held a series of borrowing measures for housing and school infrastructure during dual hearings today to cull the legislative agenda before the end of session in two weeks.

The biannual rite of passage, known as the suspense file, allows leaders of the Democratic-controlled Legislature to consider the potential cost of hundreds of pending bills — and kill some without as much public scrutiny — ahead of looming deadlines for members to take them up on the floor.

The Senate Appropriations Committee announced the fates of 489 bills assessed to have a significant fiscal effect on the state, while its Assembly counterpart sorted through 276 measures, in rapid-fire hearings without any formal debate. Those that survived already cleared their house of origin and now must pass the other chamber before Sept. 14 to move to the governor’s desk.

Supporters had anxiously awaited the outcome of Senate Bill 14, which would reclassify human trafficking of a minor as a serious felony subject to California’s three-strikes law, after progressive Democrats killed it in committee earlier this summer over concerns that it could ensnare victims who were forced to help their traffickers.

When the move set off a political firestorm, Gov. Gavin Newsom and new Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas swiftly intervened to revive the measure. Sen. Shannon Grove, the Bakersfield Republican carrying the bill, spent weeks rallying the public to pressure the Assembly Appropriations Committee not to sideline it again on the suspense file.

The committee passed the measure today with an amendment to “exempt human trafficking victims from the serious felony provision.” Assemblymember Chris Holden, the Pasadena Democrat who leads the committee, said the amendment was narrowly crafted “to make sure anyone, including a victim, is not further victimized by being caught up in a situation where they need to have some relief as well.”

Following the hearing, Grove told reporters that she believes those protections already exist in state law, but she was not opposed to the amendment, which does not undermine the measure’s intent.

“I didn’t want any excuse for them not to be able to vote for this bill,” she said. “If it allowed them to have the affirmation they need to move the bill forward, I’m grateful that they did that.”

Legislators advocating for more funding for infrastructure projects weren’t so blessed.

The Assembly committee shelved SB 28, a proposed $15.5 billion bond issue for school and college facilities by Sen. Steve Glazer, an Orinda Democrat, turning it into a two-year measure that can be reconsidered next session. The Senate committee similarly held Assembly Bill 247, a $14 billion bond proposal for K-12 schools and community colleges by Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi, a Torrance Democrat, as well as AB 1657, a $10 billion affordable housing bond by Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, an Oakland Democrat.

Only AB 531, Newsom’s $4.7 billion bond that is central to his mental health blueprint, advanced off the suspense file, clearing the way for it to appear solo on the March ballot.

With lawmakers introducing tens of billions of dollars in bond measures amid an economic downturn that has tipped California into a budget deficit, the governor has been pushing the Legislature to limit what goes before voters, suggesting the state can handle no more than about $26 billion in additional debt.

Sen. Anthony Portantino, a Glendale Democrat who leads the Senate appropriations committee, noted that the shelved bond bills could be taken up again next year and appear on the November ballot. He declined to take questions following the hearing.

Fentanyl bills advance

California’s surging fentanyl crisis has roiled the Legislature this session. Republicans and law enforcement officials led a push to crack down on dealers, while progressive Democrats moved to block many of the measures that they argue would only serve to repopulate prisons without addressing the underlying issue of addiction. Hearings have been marked by emotional testimony from Californians who lost family members to fentanyl overdoses.

At today’s suspense file hearings, the appropriation committees held AB 19, by Assemblymember Joe Patterson, a Rocklin Republican, which would require public schools to stock Narcan. But they advanced several others, including:

  • AB 33, by Assemblymember Jasmeet Bains, a Bakersfield Democrat, which would establish a task force to address fentanyl addiction and overdoses;
  • AB 474, by Assemblymember Freddie Rodriguez, a Pomona Democrat, which would promote cooperation between state and local law enforcement to fight fentanyl trafficking;
  • AB 701, by Assemblymember Carlos Villapudua, a Stockton Democrat, which would increase fines for dealers by putting fentanyl in the same category as heroin and cocaine;
  • AB 890by Patterson, which would require defendants granted probation for fentanyl-related crimes to complete a drug education program;
  • SB 19, by Sen. Kelly Seyarto, a Murrieta Republican, which would create an anti-fentanyl abuse task force.

“I think what shifted the tides is that…the problem is becoming exponentially worse,” Seyarto said. “And after a while, it’s hard to ignore.”

Protecting LGBTQ students

A brewing battle over the rights of transgender students escalated this week when state Attorney General Rob Bonta sued a Chino school district to overturn a new policy requiring parental notification when students change their gender identity, while supporters launched a ballot initiative campaign to take the policy statewide.

California’s liberal Legislature has overwhelmingly backed transgender students. The appropriations committees today advanced SB 760, by Sen. Josh Newman, a Fullerton Democrat, which would require all-gender restrooms in every school, and AB 5, by Assemblymember Rick Zbur, a Santa Monica Democrat, which would develop more LGBTQ cultural competency training for teachers.

Following a showdown between Newsom and the Temecula school board over its refusal to adopt a state social studies curriculum because it mentioned the late gay rights activist Harvey Milk, Assemblymember Corey Jackson, a Moreno Valley Democrat, is pushing AB 1078, which would fine school districts that ban textbooks and other instructional material that include diverse perspectives. It also passed off the suspense file.

Other highlights of the suspense file results:

Labor issues: The Assembly committee advanced SB 525 by Sen. Maria Elena Durazo, a Los Angeles Democrat, which would raise the minimum wage for health care workers to $25 per hour, despite warnings from state finance officials that it would cost California government agencies alone nearly $1 billion annually. Holden said he heard a deal on the proposal was “very close.”

But a bill by Assemblymember Heath Flora, a Ripon Republican, that would have given automatic pay raises to Cal Fire firefighters was held.

Paid leave: A closely-watched measure to increase paid sick days survived, but not completely. SB 616 by Sen. Lena Gonzalez, a Long Beach Democrat, would have upped the number from three to seven a year, matching what happened during the pandemic. The Assembly appropriations committee reduced that to five days before sending the bill to the floor.

Child brides: A bill to make California the 11th state to completely ban child marriages had already been weakened to merely make illegal some unions involving people under the age of 18 done through unsanctioned spiritual ceremonies. Today, SB 404 by Sen. Aisha Wahab, a Fremont Democrat, was shelved entirely.

Elections: Several bills and proposed constitutional amendments to change California  elections passed through the day’s hearings. Except, that is, for a Republican constitutional amendment (and accompanying bill) that sought to transfer the job of writing ballot measure titles and summaries from the elected attorney general to the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s office.

17th annual Gourmet Show food expo opens in Mexico City

by Diana Serratos

Once again, Mexico City’s World Trade Center will be host to one of the country’s premier food and drink industry events, The Gourmet Show, which opens Thursday and runs through Saturday.

Back for its seventeenth edition, this event will offer three days celebrating flavor, separated into different culinary realms: the Gourmet Show, the Wine Room, Agave Fest, Veganauta, Expo Café and Salón Chocolate. In each event area, attendees will find specialized products that range from food items sold directly from producers, to specialized machinery for coffee, pastry making, and restaurant service, as well as publicity services crafted for the food industry.

Among the many items to be found are national and imported wines, cheese and charcuterie from around the world, spices, condiments, dried and fresh fruit, vegan products, diet products, items low in sodium and even gluten-free options. In attendance will be internationally renowned brands alongside new companies that will use the Gourmet Show as their first launch. A specific section of the Gourmet Show will be dedicated to facilitating business deals among vendors.

At Agave Fest, you’ll find mezcal, tequila, bacanora and other distilled spirits, alongside maguey worms and roasted crickets, special sipping glasses for agave spirits and even clothing made from maguey fiber. Also available for tasting will be other national spirits like sotol, pox, and even whiskey made from blue, red, and yellow corn.

Check out Salón Chocolate to find cacao from across the globe – but expect a particular focus on Mexican chocolate, both for use in cooking and as a standalone treat.

At the culinary presentations attendees are invited to taste, learn about, and buy products at wholesale prices. Experts will be on hand to provide tastings and talks, and to share new items in their industries.

Industry professionals, students, businesspeople and the general public are all welcome at The Gourmet Show. The event host, Tradex Exposiciones, expects close to 20,000 people to attend this year’s event at the World Trade Center. Tickets can be purchased on the event website.

Tradex Exposiciones is an international leader in the food industry and has successfully run The Gourmet Show throughout its entire tenure.

The doors of the World Trade Center will be open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., making for a day-long culinary fiesta. The venue offers parking on the premises and nearby in the neighborhood. You can also arrive by taking Line 1 of the Metrobus to the Poliforum station.

Sommelier Diana Serratos writes from Mexico City.

Criminal record expungement clinics benefit 1 million+ in CA

by Suzanne Potter

California News Service

One year ago, Governor Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 731, a law that allows more than a million Californians to clear many old felony convictions from their records. Now, expungement clinics across the state are helping speed that process along. A clinic this Friday in San Francisco will help people start the paperwork to petition a judge.

Will Matthews, is spokesperson for the nonprofit Californians for Safety and Justice, which is co-sponsoring the event.

“If you’re a registered sex-offense offender, you’re ineligible,” he said. “But almost every other condition is eligible now to be sealed, as long as you have gone two years without any further contact with the justice system after fully completing your sentence.”

Old convictions have thousands of consequences and can prevent people from renting an apartment, getting a job, applying for certain professional licenses, attending a child’s field trip, and much more. Many legal aid groups offer help with record sealing, including the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Area Regional Re-entry Partnership, and Inland Counties Legal Services.

Saun Hough, partnerships manager with Californians for Safety and Justice, said helping people move on with their lives is a matter of public safety.

“So any time you have a population that is being locked out from the opportunity for economic empowerment, or from housing, or from pursuing the career of their choice, then what you’re going to see is this destabilization of communities,” Hough said.

The so-called Clean Slate law also allows the California Department of Justice to automatically seal certain arrests and misdemeanor and non-violent felonies.

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Anti-Hunger Advocates Oppose Limits on Food Benefits in Farm Bill

Anti-hunger groups are calling on Congress to protect the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program – as negotiations continue on the massive 2023 farm bill, due this fall.

SNAP, known in California as Cal Fresh, provides an average benefit of $6 per person per day. Luis Guardia – president of the Food Research and Action Center – said he wants SNAP benefits to be higher, and more accessible.

Young mother with her little baby boy at the supermarket. Healthy eating concept

“We can achieve this in the program,” said Guardia, “by linking benefits to a more realistic food plan, ending time limits for the unemployed, repealing the ban on individuals with a drug felony, dropping extra work requirements for full-time college students, and ending the prohibition on hot prepared foods.”

Conservative Republicans are expected to call to restrict access to the program, which serves 12 percent of Americans – 4.6 million people in California alone.

The chair of the House Agriculture Committee, Pennsylvania U.S. Rep. Glenn Thompson – R-Howard – has called for “reconsideration” of money allocated in the Inflation Reduction Act to climate-friendly agricultural programs.

Mike Lavender, policy director at the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, said the farm bill is an opportunity to put our values into practice.

“We’re here to urge house farm bill leaders to deliver a solid bipartisan farm bill,” said Lavender, “one that protects and strengthens anti-hunger and climate spending programs, and then includes worker protections.”

Advocates would like to see the Farm Bill include national rules to require water and rest breaks for farm workers.

US judge orders Texas to remove Rio Grande floating barriers

photo: Construction of a floating barrier in the Rio Grande near Eagle Pass as part of Texas’s Operation Lone Star. (U.S. Customs and Border Patrol/Supervisory Border Patrol Agent Abraham García)

by the El Reportero‘s wire services

The state of Texas has been ordered by a federal judge to remove the floating border barriers it placed in the Rio Grande to discourage migrants from crossing the river from Mexico into the United States.

On Wednesday, a U.S. federal judge issued a preliminary injunction instructing Texas to move its 1,000-foot string of wrecking-ball sized orange buoys out of the water by Sept. 15, calling them a threat to people’s safety and to U.S.-Mexico relations.

In his ruling, District Judge David Ezra said the barriers could violate treaty agreements between the United States and Mexico. He also cast doubt on their effectiveness. “The State of Texas did not present any credible evidence that the buoy barrier as installed has significantly curtailed illegal immigration across the Rio Grande River,” wrote Ezra, a Reagan administration appointee.

Within hours of the decision, Texas had filed an appeal. “Texas is prepared to take this fight all the way up to the Supreme Court,” Gov. Greg Abbott wrote on social media, calling the judge’s ruling an attack on the state’s “sovereign authority.” The $850,000 floating barrier was installed in July near Eagle Pass, Texas, as part of a larger migration deterrence effort known as Operation Lone Star.

In August, Mexico’s Foreign Affairs Ministry (SRE) expressed concern “about the impact on migrants’ human rights and personal security that these state policies could have, as they go in the opposite direction to close collaboration.” Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Justice sued the state, accusing Texas of violating federal law by putting a barrier on an international boundary without permission. The suit also said the barrier raised humanitarian and environmental concerns.

Shortly after the judge’s ruling, the SRE issued a brief statement on the matter on X social media platform: “We will remain attentive to the final resolution and we reiterate the urgency of definitively removing the buoys on our shared border; as well as the importance of respecting the Bilateral Treaty of 1944 and safeguarding the human rights of migrants.”

President López Obrador also addressed the judge’s ruling in his Thursday morning press conference, saying “I must extend my sincere thanks to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, which filed this complaint, and to the judge who ruled that the buoys should be removed by no later than Sept.15.” He chastised the Texas government for not seeking federal authorization before installing the barrier and said that the ruling is “good news for the Mexican people.”

The buoys, which hold up nets meant to keep migrants from swimming beneath them, are attached to concrete anchors using 12-meter chains and can shift greatly in the current. In August, Texas quietly moved the buoys back to the U.S. side of the Rio Grande, with Abbott saying they had simply “drifted” into Mexican territory. He offered no apology to Mexico, which had complained for weeks about the violation of its sovereignty.

The U.S. Justice Department submitted evidence to the federal court that roughly 80% of the barrier was on the Mexican side of the border at that time, citing a survey by the International Boundary and Water Commission, the binational agency that controls the river. Moreover, an 1899 U.S. law prohibits construction in a waterway without federal approval.

Abbott has said Texas needs no such permission because it’s under “invasion” by migrants and drug smugglers. District Judge Ezra addressed this claim in his ruling: “Under this logic, once Texas decides, in its sole discretion, that it has been invaded, it is subject to no oversight of its ‘chosen means of waging war,’” the judge wrote. “Such a claim is breathtaking.”

With reports from AP, Texas Tribune and Dallas Morning News

People are the inventory of the corporation

When they told me that our governments were private corporations, I believed them, but I was left wondering how I would plant it on the people in the street.

They put it to me like that. The Mayor is the CEO, the Board of Supervisors is the Board of Directors of the corporation, the banks are the preferred shareholders and the people – that is, the public, the inventory.

I explain this because now, suddenly, the city of San Francisco finds that it doesn’t have money for this or that, and therefore people have to salt the juice, that is, inventory, and thus pay the expenses that many Sometimes they leave in large salaries and in social services many times in the maintenance of people who come to SF with addictions and mental problems.

What have I heard?

That San Francisco is very friendly with people who arrive with nothing from other states of the Union, since in SF they show up and immediately the city’s social services offer them a check, food and perhaps housing. I have heard that many of these people are addicted or sell drugs to their own homeless people, and that these refuse to be accommodated in shelters, because they like to live outdoors and not be directed or supervised by anyone.

That many have died from synthetic opioids other than methadone (mainly fentanyl) which are the leading cause of drug overdose deaths, increasing nearly 7.5-fold between 2015 and 2021.

That businesses are being looted by thieves who break into stores and fill large bags with merchandise and sell it to places like 24th and Mission streets in San Francisco, where the sidewalks are saturated with stalls selling stolen goods.

That the judges release them immediately when they are arrested, and they continue to commit crimes.

That there are fewer policemen than are needed to control rampant looting.

All this makes me think that with so much money that is collected, it is not enough for that much.

And now it is circulating that the corporation is going to go to the inventory – the people, by extending the hours of the parking meters, which have always been from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. to 6 p.m., Monday through Friday.

People who arrive tired from work will be sacrificed by extending the hours until 10 p.m., and on Sundays from 12 noon to 6 p.m.

This is cruel, very cruel, because not even the pilgrims will be able to go to mass.

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