­by Kristian Hernández

Former undocumented journalist Rubén Vives covers a news event.

L O S A N G E L E S — He is a testament to the undocumented immigrant student’s hopes and dreams of reaching the summit to change the world. Rubén Vives, a 32-yearold Los Angeles Times reporter, was awarded the Gold Medal for Public Service, the most prestigious of the Pulitzer Prizes, on April 18, for his work with colleague Jeff Gotlieb exposing corruption in the city of Bell, Calif. Their investigative work led to the indictment of eight city officials on corruption charges.

In a column for Orange Coast Magazine, Shawn Hubler writes about her relationship to Vives and his mother, who once worked as a nanny for Hubler. “Her son was a 17-year-old high school student then. Quiet. Polite. Smart, too — college-smart, we’d tell the nanny, who’d just smile. Proud, we thought.”

At that young age, Vives faced deportation because of his illegal immigration status. He was brought to California from Guatemala by his mother at age six. Hubler, a former Times employee, helped him gain legal permission to remain in the United States. Enrolling in California State University-Fullerton, Vives began working at the Times as a copy messenger and later in a clerical job. Three years ago, he was given a shot at the Homicide Report, one of the most exhaustive jobs at the Times, according to coworker James Rainey. Rainey adds in an article for the Times that this is where Vives, among so much death, was “born” as a reporter.

Last July Vives and Gotlieb, 57, teamed to cover Bell, a 90 percent – Latino town of 37,000 residents. When they asked to interview non-Hispanic city administrator Robert Rizzo, they were denied a meeting.

The pair pushed on and uncovered that Rizzo was the highest-paid city administrator in the nation. His salary was $787,637, they found. Unbeknownst to the taxpaying public, other Bell officials were also being overgenerously compensated.

Police Chief Randy Adams received a $457,000 annual salary to run a department employing 33 officers and 46 civilian personnel. A few miles away, Los Angeles police chief Charlie Beck was paid nearly $100,000 less directing a department of 12,899 civilian personnel and 9,959 ­officers. Rizzo’s assistant, Angela Spaccia, was paid $376,288, almost equal to President Barrack Obama’s annual wage of $400,000.

Other Times’ journalists who contributed to the story’s research and development included Robert López, Paloma Esquivel, Héctor Becerra and with editing aid, former Hispanic Link reporter Efraín Hernández. The exposé resulted in eight arrests, including Rizzo and Mayor Oscar Hernández. It also resulted in passage of a bill by the California legislature requiring cities to post their officials’ salaries online.

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by John Phillip

Melatonin is a powerful natural hormone that is well known for its association with circadian rhythms that promote a healthful sleep cycle. Researchers from the University of Granada reporting in the Journal of Pineal Research have found that melatonin helps to control unnatural weight gain without reducing the intake of food. The hormone was shown to improve blood lipid profiles, to lower triglycerides and oxidized LDL cholesterol and to boost health-promoting HDL cholesterol. Found naturally in certain fruits and vegetables, small quantities are shown to provide a powerful array of health benefits and to promote deep sleep that is so critical to systemic repair functions throughout the body.

Melatonin is a natural hormone normally secreted by the pineal gland at night time to encourage sleep. Circulating levels trail off during the early morning hours to help us awaken. The importance of 7 to 9 hours of restful sleep is paramount to cellular repair and maintenance functions that promote vibrant health. New research demonstrates that melatonin exerts control over metabolic functions that determine fat accumulation, obesity and lipids and helps prevent cardiovascular disease. Researchers broke test subjects into three groups where one cohort was supplemented with melatonin.

They found that the melatonin supplemented group experienced a significant reduction in body weight with no difference in calories consumed as compared with the non-supplemented subjects. Additionally, they determined that melatonin helped to lower systolic blood pressure and provided a significant improvement in dyslipidemia and hypertriglyceridemia. Improvements in blood lipid ratios and in lowering of circulating triglycerides are critical to reducing the overall risk of heart disease.

­Melatonin is naturally found in some fruits and vegetables including mustard, Goji berries, almonds, sunflower seeds, cardamom, fennel, coriander and cherries. The researchers publishing the result of this study believe this is the first proof that melatonin can act as a critical hormonal agent in the fi ght against cardiovascular disease and lipid dysfunction. They did note that the protective effect of melatonin was more pronounced in younger subjects in this study prompting dietary intervention or supplementation at an earlier age to yield maximum health benefits.

The study authors concluded “administration of melatonin and intake of food containing melatonin might be a useful tool to fi ght obesity and the risks associated to it.” In addition to natural food sources, many health-minded individuals will want to supplement with 1 to 3 mg of melatonin each night, taken 30 minutes before retiring, to promote sound sleep, avoid unnecessary weight gain and ward off the damaging effects of oxidized blood fats that promote heart disease.

­by the El Reportero’s news services

Enrique Peña Nieto

Enrique Peña Nieto, the current governor of the Estado de México and the opinion poll frontrunner for the 2012 presidential elections, is starting to set the political tone. Some commentators allude to his growing influence by calling him the 501st (and most powerful) member of the 500-seat congress, because he has indicated that he does not want congress to consider the current government’s stalled political reforms in a special session. Congress, which is dominated by Peña Nieto’s Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), has taken the hint. If there is no special session nothing will be changed in time for next year’s elections.

How U.S. policy will change after Valenzuela

On May 5 Arturo Valenzuela, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, let it be known that he was resigning. Valenzuela is returning to academia: he had left Georgetown University on a two-year leave of absence in 2009. His period as the US’s chief policy maker towards Latin America has seen a major change in the ­relationship, as President Barack Obama had promised.

The U.S. now has professional diplomats heading its missions across the region and reacts much more calmly to provocative behavior by taunting presidents such as Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua and Hugo Chávez in Venezuela. The traditional US policy of treating Latin America as its “backyard” has ended. This change has an economic price, as the region’s relationship with China has blossomed. Strategically, however, the region has preferred to integrate rather than to ally itself with rivals to the U.S.

Chávez welds moderate foreign policy to domestic agenda

Venezuela’s President Hugo Chávez is gearing up for his re-election bid next year with a concerted effort to court the middle class. Chávez never really steps out of campaign mode but his adoption of a more moderate foreign policy, in conjunction with domestic economic policy changes, suggests he feels the need to reach beyond his core support base among the poor to the middle class. This comes as his most likely rival in December 2012, Henrique Capriles Radonski, just 38 and the politician with the greatest chance of defeating Chávez according to recent polls, announced his intention to compete in the opposition party primaries on Feb. 12 next year.

‘ Pacific Alliance’ and ‘OAS without US’ come onstage

The last week of April witnessed the emergence of two regional organizations in Latin America: the Alianza del Pacífico (AP; Pacific Alliance), formed by four countries committed to free trade and enterprise, and the Comunidad de Estados Latinoamericanos y Caribeños (Celac; Community of Latin American and Caribbean States), which includes all countries in the hemisphere save the US and Canada. Presidents Juan Manuel Santos of Colombia and Hugo Chávez of Venezuela have fi gured prominently among those promoting these developments: the former in his bid to pull Colombia out of its long period of isolation, the latter seeking to prevent further deterioration of his country’s regional infl uence.

by Steve Watson, Paul Joseph Watson & Alex Jones

Infowars

Several schools in San Antonio are being provided with government grants to install surveillance equipment in cafeterias as part of a government funded project to monitor every morsel of food that the children eat.

Billed as part of an effort to reduce obesity and improve eating habits, small cameras are programmed to take snapshots of lunch trays before and after each student eats. Each child is uniquely identifiable via a barcode attached to the tray. The amount of calories and nutrients that each child has consumed is then calculated via a database containing 7,500 different varieties of food.

The entire project is being funded by a U.S. Department of Agriculture grant to the tune of $2 million. “We’re trying to be as passive as possible. The kids know they’re being monitored,” Dr. Roger Echon told the Associated Press. Echon, who works  for the San Antonio-based Social & Health Research Center, is building the food-recognition program.

The aim of the study, according to the researchers is ” to study what foods children are likely to choose and how much they’re eating”, in addition to influencing parents to alter their child’s eating habits at home. The principal of the five schools involved, described by researchers as “poor minority campuses”, told the AP that 90% of parents agreed to allow their children to be monitored, adding that he believes those who have resisted do not understand the project.

“Nothing in the program says they can’t have something,” principal Mark Davis said. “It just says we’re tracking what it is.” This is yet another example of the shocking acceleration of the nanny state.

Is it really necessary to barcode kids like rats in a lab and database everything they eat in order to promote healthy eating? Why not just serve healthy food free from additives and preservatives? Oh right I forgot, that is not a part of the vision for the perfect control freak society.

Where does this end? Will parents receive letters from the government informing them that little Jimmy is not eating his greens? Will the government move to ration your child’s calorie intake? Will the government issue fi nes to parents whose children’s eating habits do not match up to a predetermined definition of a “balanced diet”?

Just last month it emerged that schools in Chicago have banned parents from giving their children packed lunches, forcing kids to eat in the cafeteria in order to “protect students from the potential for unhealthy homemade lunches”. f course, should kids be allowed to eat their own lunches the government would not be able to effectively monitor them.

The precedent was set long ago to demonize any parents who try to keep the government out of their children’s lives. Parents who attempt to take their kids out of the predatory public school system by home schooling are even being spied on by authorities. A Mississippi state judge recently ordered that state officials gather the names of every single child being home schooled in the state in order that they be kept on a watch list.

Mayor Bloomberg is forcing food manufacturers in New York to reduce the amount of salt content in food under the National Salt Reduction Initiative, while at the same time spending $25 million on a program to fluoridate the water supply with a toxic waste, sodium fluoride, that contributes to lowering IQ and has been linked to cancers as well as disorders affecting teeth, bones, the brain and the thyroid gland. Food additives like aspartame and MSG, which are a far deadlier health threat

than salt, are not being targeted ­by the government. Indeed, New York is the model for the rest of the country. The Department of Health has slapped strict regulations on anything deemed “risky recreational activities” conducted by programs or organizations.

Wiffl e ball, dodge ball, kick ball, freeze tag, red rover, frisbee tossing and tug of war have all been placed under the new rules. If an organization offers two or more recreational activities, with just one being on the “risky” list, it is deemed to be a summer camp and comes under state regulation which entails fees and the necessity to provide medical staff. “Classics like Capture the Flag, Steal the Bacon and Red Rover are also deemed dangerous in new state regulations for day camps,” reports the New York Daily News. This is all part of the process of the state replacing the parents as guardians of the children and it is designed to ensure that kids become nothing more than drug-addled, dependent slobs with no energy and no life experience, perfectly molding them to grow up as obedient, video- game playing, Clockwork Orange-style droogs.

Monitoring of school children extends beyond the cafeteria and gym class, however, as evidenced last year in a shocking case in Philadelphia, where a school district issued laptop computers to 1,800 students across two high schools and then used concealed cameras within the machines to spy on students and their parents without their knowledge or consent.

In today’s big brother control freak society this is the norm. In the UK, the state has gone one further by pumping $700 million into a program to install surveillance cameras inside the private homes of citizens to ensure that children go to bed on time, attend school and eat proper meal.

Broad coalition kicks off national campaign to hold banks accountable for foreclosures, recession

­Submitted by Contra Costa Inteface

The people say: “Stop foreclosures now,” during a march against the Wells Fargo Bank foreclosures.  (PHOTO COURTESY BY MAX KOO AND DAVE GOLDEN)

SAN FRANCISCO — Hundreds of people marched through San Francisco’s Financial District today to demand that Wells Fargo change corporate policies that bankrupt families, dismantle neighborhoods, and empty public coffers.

During the bank’s annual shareholder meeting, a delegation of homeowners and clergy addressed Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf to demand an immediate foreclosure moratorium. Unlike other national banks, Wells Fargo has not changed its foreclosure procedures despite numerous confirmed reports of “robo-signing” and other illegalities in the foreclosure process.

“Today is very personal for my family. Since 2005, I have been fighting Wells for wrongful foreclosure,” said San Leandro resident Donna Vieira. “But through this process, I have learned that I am not alone. A quarter of foreclosures in this country happen right here in California and 700,000 families are in foreclosure right now. We need these banks to have a new bottom line that includes investing in our communities.”

Vieira has spent the last several years organizing with leaders from CCISCO: Contra Costa Interfaith and ACCE: Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, two of the organizers of the protest.

According to the U.S. Departments of Treasury and Housing and Urban Development, at the end of 2009, there were 350,169 Wells Fargo homeowners eligible for the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP). As of Feb 2011, only 77,402 homeowners received permanent modifications. This is a mere 22 percent rate of modification, more than 2 years into the program (www.makinghomeaffordable.gov). Meanwhile, Wells Fargo received nearly $43.7 billion in federal bailout funds, according to a widely cited study by Nomi Prins of Demos, a nonpartisan think tank. Furthermore, Wells Fargo reported to the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2010 that it paid CEO John Stumpf more than $17 million, including a $14 million bonus.

The shareholder actions are part of The New Bottom Line campaign fueled by a coalition of community organizations, congregations, labor unions, and individuals working together to build a movement that challenges established big bank interests on behalf of struggling and middle-class communities. Together, we work to restructure Wall Street to help American families build wealth, close the country’s growing income inequality gap and advance a vision for how our economy can better serve the many rather than the few.

The New Bottom Line campaign includes National ­People’s Action (NPA), PICO National Network, Alliance for a Just Society, Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE), and Industrial Areas Foundation of the Southeast (IAF-SE) and dozens of state and local organizations from around the country.

Foreclosures

At the end of 2009, there were 350,169 Wells Fargo homeowners who were eligible for HAMP. As of Feb 2011, only 77,402 got permanent modifications, a 22 percent rate of modification more than two years into the program. Wells Fargo has canceled 118,697 trial modifications and denied 175,336 homeowners from accessing HAMP. Unlike other national banks, Wells Fargo has not changed its foreclosure procedures despite numerous confirmed reports of “robosigning” and other illegalities in the foreclosure process.

Tax Evasion

Over the last ten years, Wells Fargo paid the lowest worldwide tax rate of the top five big banks (24.8 percent $27.5 billion on $110.9 billion pre tax earnings) and reportedly did not pay any federal taxes in 2009.

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