Friday, September 13, 2024
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Kick It California is here to help Californians quit smoking, and improve their physical and mental health

by Mark Hedin

Ethnic Media Services

 

California is once again a leader in the fight against tobacco companies with the “California Smoking Cessation Helpline,” now renamed “Kick It California” – a state effort to help people quit smoking.

At Kick It California, anyone who wants to quit using tobacco – whether it’s smoking cigarettes, vaping, chews, or anything else – will find a wide variety of resources available for free on the program’s new website, optimized for mobile phones kickitca.org/es. You can also take the first step to improve your health by texting the words “QUIT SMOKING” to 66819 (or “Quit Smoking” if you prefer to do it in English) or call 1-800-300-8086. The program offers services in English and Spanish, and includes counseling and, in some cases, offers nicotine patches, gum, or lozenges at no cost.

“Kick It California” has helped more than one million Californians kick their nicotine addiction. We are here to help you take the first step towards quitting tobacco, and we encourage you to visit our website for free guides and plans to quit smoking, or to speak with one of our tobacco cessation advisors and make a plan. personalized that works for you, “said Emily Aughinbaugh, director of the Kick It California program.

Now more than ever, it is important that Californians prioritize their mental health. More than half of the smokers who called the California Smoking Cessation Helpline declared that they had a mental illness, such as depression, anxiety disorder, bipolar disorder, drug or alcohol abuse, or schizophrenia, and two-thirds of they suffered from more than one disease.

Notably, more than 70% of smokers in a Public Library of Science (PLOS) study on smoking mental health attempted to quit, regardless of their mental health status. The vast majority of smokers in the sample in this study sought help to quit smoking, which indicates that the advice provided by the services offered by Kick It California may offer an “excellent opportunity to improve the quality of life of the smokers”.

Quitting smoking is a process that may take several attempts to be successful. But the effort is worth it, both for physical and mental health.

Quitting smoking at any age is beneficial as it reduces the risk of premature death from chronic diseases and improves overall health. Over time, your risk of heart disease, reproductive health problems, and 12 types of cancer, including lung, liver, and bladder, are lowered. In the first 24 hours after you quit smoking, nicotine levels in your blood drop to zero. By the second week, circulation improves and the lungs begin to work better. Did you know that quitting smoking can add up to 10 years to your life expectancy?

In addition to stimulating physical improvements, quitting tobacco can reduce anxiety and stress, and even improve mood and quality of life.

Kick It California is here to help all Californians who want to quit smoking, not only to support their physical well-being, but also their mental health.

“Every step counts. Start 2022 without tobacco!” stressed Aughinbaugh, director of Kick It California.

“I started smoking at 18 and it made me think that I looked very interesting and mature, but I was wrong. A lot of people are killing themselves with this bad habit. After feeling that I was constantly short of breath and other things that my body It made me feel to know that I should think about quitting smoking now, the day to quit smoking has finally arrived, and it is one of the best decisions I have made in my entire life! I had never imagined that I could quit smoking Thank you Kick it California for giving me the most important tool to save my life.

–Juan E., Quit smoking with Kick It California

CHASE opens Community Center in Oakland to boost economic opportunity among minorities

Inspired by the downtown community, he plans to help more African American and Latino consumers open and grow their businesses

 

Sponsored by JPMorgan Chase

 

To boost economic opportunities for minorities, Chase Bank opened a branch that will function as a community center in the City of Oakland, and it is the first of its kind in Northern California, and just one of 12 out of 4,800 branches. they have all over the country.

“Oakland represents a proud and passionate community where there are many talented consumers and entrepreneurs, but they don’t always have access,” said Jonathan Morales, head of business and community development for Chase in California.

That is why – he explained – they are launching branches like the Oakland Community Center where they provide access to experts, resources and solutions. “These are all free educational resources for people to grow, change their trajectory and have an impact on the economy.”

He added that “the two staples of this branch are our branch manager, Latanya Millican, who is from this area, and also our community manager, Myesha Brown.”

He said these two incredible resources will lead this effort at the local level. “We also offer the local community access to subject matter experts from across the bank, small business support and financial wealth education.”

Morales stated that although this is a new commitment and a new style of branch, they have always been committed to providing solutions to the communities they serve.

“We are really finding ways to attract people and you don’t have to have a bank account to use the center, and this is just the beginning.”

Located at 3005 Broadway Avenue, the Oakland Community Center offers a variety of innovative tools and resources to help grow local entrepreneurs to open or expand their small businesses.

It offers them a community room where they can host events, community groups, and local non-profit organizations.

It also has a free Wi-Fi and technology desk for community groups and residents. He will provide workshops on establishing financial health, sessions on saving, budgeting, and building good credit; and services to help open bank accounts.

“We continue our mission to go beyond banking to contribute to community development and help them grow,” said Lawrence Bailey, Head of Business and Community Development for Chase Consumer Banking nationwide.

“The doors are now open at the Oakland Community Center to welcome local residents. We will host financial health seminars for the community to learn and get advice on how to achieve their financial goals and ultimately build generational wealth.”

Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf said the new Community Center in Oakland is a testament to JPMorgan Chase’s ongoing commitment to investing in local communities.

“We are putting our communities first and this new center will serve as a place for our residents to have information and to grow.”

For his part, Jamie Dimon, president of Chase said that Covid and the murder of George Floyd taught them something they already knew, that when bad things happen, poor communities are the most affected.

“A bank needs to be part of the community. We are dedicated to trying to lift people up.”

Small business expansion

The new Oakland Community Center branch is part of the company’s $ 30 billion investment commitment to promote racial equity and advance economic opportunity in African American and Latino communities.

With this commitment, Chase recently launched a new program to accelerate the growth of minority small businesses in 13 cities across the United States, including the San Francisco Bay area.

Through this initiative, available to both Chase clients and non-clients, small business owners are assigned a senior business consultant who provides advisory services for three to six months, including mentoring, development guidance business and financial planning.

“After collaborating with my senior Chase business consultant Nykole Prevost, our chief operating officer and I were able to identify the areas where business can really impact our local communities on a schedule faster than we originally envisioned.” said Derrick Hill, founder and president of Hill & Quality Associates, LLC.

Over the next five years, Chase plans to provide an additional 15,000 loans of up to $2 billion to small businesses in predominantly African-American and Latino populations.

Increase in home ownership

“The housing crisis continues to affect the Oakland community, especially in the Fruitvale and East Oakland areas, and that is why partnerships with companies like JPMorgan Chase are vital to creating more opportunities to provide affordable housing,” he said. Chris Iglesias, director of The Unity Council organization.

“Being anchored in Fruitvale for more than 50 years helps us identify the needs of the community in real time so that we can act quickly.”

Chase offers a variety of solutions in terms of housing; and in the last 5 years it has invested more than $ 300 million in Oakland in low-cost, long-term loans for low-income housing to protect local residents from displacement.

Specifically in the San Antonio and Fruitvale neighborhoods of Oakland, they have collaborated with organizations such as the East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation and The Unity Council to preserve their homes with a $ 35 million loan through the Housing for Health Fund; and they have also made an $85 million collaboration with Enterprise Community Partners, Kaiser Permanente and JPMorgan Chase.

They will also offer a $5,000 grant to cover closing costs and down payment to home buyers in diverse and underserved communities across the country.

Customers who complete a certified education course can also save an additional $500 on a Chase DreamMaker mortgage.

Local hiring to serve the neighborhood

The new community center in Oakland has a full-time community manager who will help connect residents with interactive programs on topics such as credit, budgeting, and saving for their future.

New Community Manager Millican along with staff will provide financial workshops to local groups in the Oakland community.

“Serving the local community is our top priority and it is important that we continue to be there for our residents to help them meet their financial needs,” said Millican.

“We are excited to find ways to continue helping the Oakland community reach its financial goals.”

She added that this center will impact lives and make a difference.

The Oakland Community Center branch will also employ a community home loan expert who will be dedicated to helping more people in the neighborhood become homeowners.

The first prototype of this new branch model opened in 2019 in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City, followed by Minneapolis, Chicago, Dallas, New Orleans, Los Angeles, Detroit, Houston and Boston.

JPMorgan Chase has a long history of more than 130 years serving the Bay Area, and has about 3 million customers and a local network of more than 135 branches.

NOTICE INVITING BIDS – Peralta Community College District

The Peralta Community College District is seeking proposals from qualified firms to provide training services for PeopleSoft Upgrade Phase II Training (RFP No. 21-22/17) to be delivered to the Purchasing Department electronically (via Vendor Registry), until 11:00 A.M., on December 17, 2021.

Scope of Work
Provide Training Services with the deployment of PeopleSoft Upgrade Phase II
Copies of the Request for Proposal documents may be obtained by clicking on the following link:

https://build.peralta.edu/vendorregistry

Governing Codes:
GC 53068,
EC 81641

Journalism Behind Journalism, at SF Public Library / and Spanish Harlem Orquestra

Compiled by the El Reportero‘s staff

 

Board Member Gina Baleria, author of The Journalism Behind Journalism, will be speaking at the SFPL to discuss issues related to bias and objectivity in the journalism field, as well as how our media landscape can better address issues of power, equity and addressing the needs of news audiences.

The who, what, when, where, and why of intangibles — Cultivating curiosity : the foundation of exceptional journalism — Empathy, solidarity, & compassion : covering subjects fairly & countering echo chambers — Good stewards : facing our implicit & unconscious biases — The intrepid journalist : tapping into tenacity, doggedness, & resourcefulness — Community engagement : identify, connect, & engage (but don’t pander!) — Inclusive writing & storytelling : speaking the language of your communities — Speaking truth to power : embracing the journalist’s accountability role — The importance of stepping away : managing safety, trauma, & self-care in journalism — Navigating & understanding the journalism industry & operationalizing your passion.
Register here: https://sfpl.org/events/2021/12/07/author-gina-baleria-transforming-media-landscape

Tuesday, Dec. 7, 6:30 – 7:30 p.m.

 

Spanish Harlem Orchestra concert

The event will take place in the Serra Ballroom, the biggest space in the Monterey Conference Center. Ticket-buyers have the option of purchasing VIP (table seating at the very front of the room), Reserved (behind the VIP section), and General Admission tickets.

There will be a large dance floor in the middle of the ballroom! MP is also organizing a “SHO Salsa Caravan” from the San Francisco Bay Area.

Spanish Harlem Orchestra, the two-time Grammy winning Salsa and Latin Jazz band, sets the standard for excellence for authentic, New York style, hard core salsa. Live or recorded, it doesn’t get any better.

With four albums, and as many Grammy nominations, this Latin Jazz powerhouse knows it is crucial to continually push themselves and raise the bar. They recently released their fifth album, featuring two of America’s great jazz icons, Chick Corea & saxophonist Joe Lovano. Oscar Hernandez and Spanish Harlem Orchestra continue to raise the bar of excellence in their music. at the Monterey Conference Center, scheduled for Saturday, December 11, 2021.

http://www.spanishharlemorchestra.com, San Jose, CA. Doors open at 7 p.m.

This is how kiliwa sounds, a Mexican language that has only 3 speakers/ and Frida Kalho paint

Listen to the sound of kiliwa, an indigenous Mexican language that is about to become extinct …

 

by Mas De Mex‘s staff

 

When the world was created, nothing existed. Only darkness reigned, as in the night. Then came a man-coyote-moon? Melti ipá? and did it all.

This is how the origin is told in kiliwa, a Mexican language that is about to disappear. Of him only 3 speakers remain and they still live in the town of Arroyo de León in Ensenada, Baja California; the place that saw his language being born.

By telling their stories? Those of the past and everyday? The Kiliwas suggest a feeling that many speakers of Mexican languages ​​are experiencing today: the immense loneliness of no longer having “someone to talk to.” Until recently there were 4 Kiliwas, but time has done the same and the family recently said goodbye to Hipólita, a speaker who died on April 30, 2019 at the age of 93.

And although the news does not resonate enough, it is powerful to imagine that only 3 people are now heirs of a language and of a way of structuring the world; with its myths, its gods, its concepts and sounds that in a few years could be spoken for the last time. But despite the impending loss, there is resistance in his speech.

Leonor Farlow, the last woman to speak in Kiliwa, does not give up hope of leaving her trail behind. Together with Arnulfo Estrada Ramírez (Ensenada chronicler) she collaborated in the creation of an illustrated dictionary that can be used so that anyone can learn the principles of kiliwa. However, as she herself admits, this language is not simple and deeply apprehending the way in which it abstracts the world is not any challenge.

In that sense, Arnulfo and Leonor affirm, this is “the decline of the ancient Kiliwa language.” They consider that any contemporary effort comes late to a history of loss of territories; migration to urban centers (for different socio-economic needs), and? above all? social discrimination and lack of official recognition.

It is clear that, as the linguist Yásnaya Elena affirms, no indigenous language dies in peace. But although this note leaves us with a relatively bitter taste, it should also serve to think about the way in which we are involved in ensuring the right of others to inhabit the world on their particular terms.

There are languages, people, ways of speaking and understanding life for which it is not yet too late.

 

In other arts related news:

 

Frida Kahlo Portrait Sells for Record $35 M. at Sotheby’s

 

Shared/by Angélica Villa

Arts News

 

A self-portrait by Frida Kahlo that had been held in a private collection for 30 years sold for a record-setting $34.9 million (including fees) at Sotheby’s in New York on Tuesday evening.

The painting, Diego y yo (1949), depicts the artist gazing tearfully at the viewer; superimposed on her forehead is an image of her husband, the muralist Diego Rivera, who himself has a third eye.

The result quadrupled the artists’s previous auction record of $8 million, notched in 2016 when her 1939 painting Two Nudes in the Forest (The land itself) sold at Christie’s in New York.

Just two bidders—one on the phone with Julian Dawes, Sotheby’s co-head of Impressionist and modern art in New York, and the other on the phone with Anna di Stasi, Sotheby’s senior vice president for Latin American art—competed for the work. The painting, which was offered in the sale with an irrevocable bid hammered with di Stasi’s client at a hammer price of $31 million, just above the $30 million low estimate. The winning buyer was Eduardo F. Costantini, founder of Malba, Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires.

The Kahlo painting was sold by a descendant of a New York collector, who purchased it in 1990 at Sotheby’s for $1.4 million. Prior to that sale, it belonged to Chicago writer and critic Florence Arquin, who was a friend of Rivera and Kahlo.

Not only did Diego y yo bring a new artist record for Kahlo, it also become the most expensive work by a Latin American artist ever sold at auction, surpassing the previous record held by Rivera’s painting The Rivals, which sold at Christie’s for $9.8 million in 2019.

In a statement, Dawes said, “Tonight’s outstanding result further secures her place in the auction echelon she belongs, as one of the true titans of 20th century art.”

A pandemic of the vaccinated

And to keep the REAL pandemic going, we must have vaccine mandates and passports and crackdowns on the unvaccinated

 

by Jon Rappoport

 

Daily Mail, Nov. 18, 2021: “Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said waning immunity from the initial shots is leading to a rise in severe cases among immunized Americans. ‘What we’re starting to see now is an uptick in hospitalizations among people who’ve been vaccinated but not boosted’…”

NY Times podcast, November 12, 2021; Fauci states: “They are seeing a waning of [vaccine-induced] immunity not only against infection but against hospitalization and to some extent death, which is starting to now involve all age groups. It isn’t just the elderly.”

Translation: The vaccine is severely injuring and killing MANY people, but of course we’re calling those injuries and deaths “COVID-19 disease.” Also, our solution to this catastrophe is piling on MORE injections (boosters), which will hospitalize and kill even MORE people.

The dailyexpose.uk has the much deeper story:

“The public are being repeatedly lied to by elected officials, unelected advisors, and the mainstream media, with all of them claiming that the world is currently experiencing a Pandemic of the Unvaccinated. This could not be further from the truth.”

“But the lie has now been used to justify locking down the unvaccinated in Austria, and locking the unvaccinated out of society in Australia.”

“Now Germany is about to follow suit, Scotland is about to ban the unvaccinated from pubs and restaurants under the advice of a qualified nutritionist posing as a Pandemic expert who goes by the name of Devi Sridhar, and the authorities and media in England have gone into overdrive on the advice of the ‘nudge unit’ to sway the population into supporting a lockdown for only the unvaccinated.”

“But it all makes absolutely no sense because official Public Health data shows that over the past three months… two-thirds of Covid-19 hospitalizations [people who get very sick from the shot] have been among the fully vaccinated, and a frightening 91 percent of Covid-19 deaths [people who die from the shot] have been among the fully vaccinated, and projections shows things are about to get a lot worse.”

“…in the week beginning November 6th a total of 773 Covid-19 hospitalizations [people injured by the shot] were confirmed in Scotland. Of these 137 were among the unvaccinated population, whilst 363 were among the vaccinated population.”

“…the fully vaccinated accounted for the majority of hospitalizations [in Scotland] between October 16th and Nov.12, and again by taking into account hospitalizations as far back as August 23rd we can see that things have been getting progressively worse for the fully vaccinated by the week.”

“In the week beginning Aug. 21 the vaccinated accounted for 68 percent of hospitalizations, but fast forward to the week beginning November 6th and we can see that the vaccinated accounted for 73 percent of hospitalizations.”

“The worst week so far for the vaccinated however, in terms of hospitalizations, came in the week beginning Oct. 16 which saw the vaccinated population account for 79 percent of Covid-19 hospitalizations [people injured by the shot].”

“[In Scotland]…the fully vaccinated accounted for the overwhelming majority of Covid-19 deaths [deaths from the shot] between Oct. 9 and Nov. 5 2021. But by also taking into account the number of…deaths by vaccination status as far back as Aug. 14 we’re able to see that things are getting significantly worse for the fully vaccinated population by the week…”

“…the week beginning Aug. 14 the vaccinated accounted for 78 percent of deaths, but fast forward to the week beginning Oct. 30 and we can see that the vaccinated accounted for 85 percent of deaths.”

Switching from Scotland to England: “The latest Public Health England technical briefing on Covid-19 variants of concern has been published and it reveals that up to the 12th September 2021, 74 percent of all alleged Covid-19 deaths since August 2nd 2021 [people killed by the shot] have been among the vaccinated population, confirming the UK is currently experiencing a pandemic of the vaccinated.”

But don’t worry, be happy. The solution—endless toxic boosters—will surely save the day. And by “save the day,” I mean tens or even hundreds of millions of lives will be ruined and ended.

And by “save the day,” I also mean the news media will cover all this up and continue to promote an alternative fantasy of a universe, in which the vaccine is a rescuing rainbow and the unvaccinated are terrorists.

There’s magic at work here. If you believe what the news media are telling you, then you’ll remain vibrant and healthy (if you take the vaccine and all the boosters). If you don’t take the vaccine, you’re doomed. It’s really quite something. Those talking news heads are elves from the forest. With every word they utter, they cast powerful spells.

That’s why the really smart people trust the news and embrace the elves.

Jon Rappoport, the author of three explosive collections, The Matrix Revealed, Exit From The Matrix, and Power Outside The Matrix.

Fruits for diabetes prevention: what to eat and what to avoid

by Rose Lidell

 

12/01/2021 – Eating a well-balanced diet consisting of nutritious foods like fruits and vegetables can help improve your overall well-being. According to a study published in 2013, eating whole fruits can even help lower your risk of developing Type 2 diabetes. However, some fruits are more effective than others at preventing the disease.

The study, which was conducted by researchers from Harvard University, analyzed data from three long-running health studies that included 151,209 women and 36,173 men. All volunteers answered questionnaires about their lifestyle, diet and health, particularly any diseases they’d developed, every few years for at least two decades.

Fruit consumption and diabetes risk

The researchers asked the participants specifically about these 10 fruits:

– Apples or pears

– Bananas

– Blueberries

– Cantaloupe

– Grapefruit

– Grapes or raisins

– Oranges

– Peaches

– Plums or apricots

– Prunes

– Strawberries

After analyzing their data, the researchers found that blueberries were the most effective fruits for preventing diabetes, followed by grapes and apples. Bananas and grapefruit were also good for diabetes prevention.

Strawberries didn’t have much of an effect. On the other hand, cantaloupe slightly increased the risk for Type 2 diabetes.

The researchers also discovered that drinking all kinds of fruit juice, including apple, orange and grapefruit juice, was linked to a higher risk of diabetes. Findings also revealed that replacing three servings of fruit juice each week with blueberries helped lower the risk of Type 2 diabetes by 33 percent on average.

Replacing fruit juice with grapes and raisins lowered diabetes risk by 19 percent; apples and pears reduced the risk by 13 percent; and any combination of whole fruits decreased the risk by seven percent. Replacing fruit juice with oranges, peaches, plums and apricots also had a similar effect.

If you have Type 2 diabetes, your body can’t produce enough insulin, the hormone that pulls glucose out of the bloodstream and into your cells to be stored and released later. Without sufficient insulin, blood sugar spikes and falls sharply.

Researchers suggest that blueberries, red grapes and apples may lower the risk of Type 2 diabetes because they contain high levels of anthocyanins, which have been shown to increase glucose uptake by cells in mice with diabetes.

Qi Sun, one of the study authors and an assistant professor at Harvard School of Public Health, said that generally, fruit juices contain less beneficial compounds than whole fruits.

Sun explained that the juicing process gets rid of the fruit and leaves only fluids that are absorbed more quickly. Drinking fruit juice thus causes blood sugars and insulin levels to rise if they contain sugars.

You can lower your risk of developing Type 2 diabetes by reducing your fruit juice consumption and eating more whole fruits instead, concluded Sun.

According to health experts, following a nutritious diet that includes a variety of fruits and vegetables and exercising regularly is the best way to prevent Type 2 diabetes.

Kamlesh Khunti, professor of primary care diabetes and vascular medicine at the University of Leicester, explained that the large study has proven that eating any fruit is good. Consume at least five portions of fruit and vegetables daily, advised Khunti.

Healthy snacking tips for diabetes prevention

Follow these tips to prevent diabetes and manage cravings if you already have diabetes:

– Drink water instead of soda or sugary beverages. Thirst can feel like hunger, and staying hydrated ensures that you feel full longer. You can drink coffee and tea in moderation, but don’t add cream, sugar and other flavorings that will increase the caloric content of your beverage and elevate your blood sugar.

– If you have diabetes, drink water instead of diet drinks with artificial sweeteners. Even though the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) considers many of these sweeteners safe for human consumption, their health benefits have been invalidated by large-scale studies.

– Limit your intake of processed foods. Processed and packaged foods are loaded with sodium and sugar, making them bad for you.

– Follow a routine. Try to eat your meals and snacks at the same time every day to prevent excessive snacking. Spacing meals evenly can help prevent blood sugar dips and spikes and stave off hunger that can cause overeating.

Eat whole foods and fresh fruits to stay healthy and prevent Type 2 diabetes. You can visit Superfoods.news to learn more foods that are good for your overall well-being.

Robbing spree: Organized criminal elements hitting California luxury retailers

by Arsenio Toledo

 

Thursday, Nov. 25, 2021 – Organized criminal elements are on a robbing spree in California, hitting several luxury retailers in the past week. The series of retail robberies in the state began on Nov. 15.

The city police department of Concord in the East Bay shared a video on its social media accounts showing at least nine masked and hooded individuals armed with hammers robbing a jewelry store. When store employees tried to stop them, they “were kept back by the hammer-wielding criminals,” the police said in a press release.

On Nov. 19, dozens of individuals made their way through a mall in San Francisco’s Union Square and robbed multiple stores, including Bloomingdale’s, Burberry, Louis Vuitton and Yves Saint Laurent. The stolen products are believed to be worth over $1 million.

The next day, nearly 100 criminals in Walnut Creek in the East Bay rushed into a Nordstrom store in what police officers said was “clearly a planned event.” The thieves rushed the store and took as many products as they can into vehicles in the store’s parking lot. One employee was pepper-sprayed and two others were assaulted.

On Sunday morning, Nov. 21, employees of a Lululemon store in San Jose reported at least four people leaving the scene of the crime with more than $40,000 worth of merchandise.

Later that day, an estimated 40 to 50 criminals in Hayward robbed a jewelry store by smashing open jewelry cases. Video footage of the incident showed dozens of hooded robbers running out of the store carrying the stolen items.

On Monday, Nov. 22, a clothing store in Oakland was robbed by more than two dozen individuals who flooded into the store and grabbed as many items as they could before quickly fleeing the scene of the crime. The store’s owners said the thieves pried open the store’s security gate and broke the windows to get inside.

The latest organized robbery incident happened in San Jose on Tuesday, Nov. 23, when two men were arrested after trying to steal items from a Macy’s. The two thieves were caught by police officers with an estimated $2,000 worth of store merchandise. After interrogation, the officers learned that the two suspects may be connected to another robbery.

California governor’s business robbed three times this year

California Gov. Gavin Newsom has described the incidents as “people smashing and grabbing, stealing people’s items, creating havoc, terror in the streets.” Newsom said he understands what retailers are going through as a business owner himself. He owns a hospitality company, including wine shops and restaurants.

“My business has been broken into three times this year,” said Newsom. “I have no empathy, no sympathy for these folks and they must be held to account.”

The governor announced that his office has already met with retailers who asked for more police patrols around their stores. Newsom said state authorities will start being more aggressive towards organized retail-theft rings.

More police officers are expected to start patrolling “highly trafficked” shopping malls around the state’s largest cities and more money will be allocated for law enforcement in next year’s state budget.

Investigations are also currently underway, headed by a retail crime task force. Newsom said this task force has already conducted 773 investigations and recovered nearly $20 million worth of stolen merchandise.

The number of theft incidents is expected to rise as the holidays come nearer. “Smash and grabs” are noted to increase around the Christmas holiday season, according to Lynda Buel, president of security consulting firm SRMC.

Ben Dugan, president of the Coalition of Law Enforcement and Retail, said that retailers lose about $65 billion each year to organized theft. The bulk of this loss is conducted by professional thieves and organized crime rings

Without proper action from California authorities, it is likely retailers in the state are going to lose even more this year.

After pleading for mercy, El Chapo’s wife gets 3 years for drug charges

The judge wished her good luck after handing down the short jail term

 

The wife of the convicted drug trafficker and former Sinaloa Cartel chief Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán was handed a three-year jail sentence in a United States court on Tuesday after she requested leniency from the judge.

California-born dual citizen Emma Coronel Aispuro, 32, was on trial on charges of drug trafficking and financial crimes, and faced the possibility of life imprisonment.

She pleaded guilty in June to three counts of conspiring to distribute illegal drugs, conspiring to launder money and of engaging in financial dealings with the Sinaloa Cartel. She also admitted to aiding her husband’s audacious escape from a maximum security prison in México state in 2015.

Federal prosecutors had asked for a lenient four-year prison term, considering that she would also be forfeiting US $1.5 million as part of her sentence.

The former beauty queen has nine-year-old twin daughters with Guzmán, who was sentenced to life in prison in the U.S. in July 2019 on charges of drug trafficking, conspiracy, kidnapping and murder.

Coronel pleaded for mercy from U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras at the hearing on Tuesday.

“With all due respect, I address you today to express my true regret for any and all harm that I may have done, and I ask that you and all the citizens of this country forgive me,” she said in Spanish through an interpreter.

She added she feared a harsh sentence due to her husband’s infamy.

“Perhaps for this reason you feel there is a need for you to be harder on me, but I pray that you do not do that,” she said.

Federal prosecutor Anthony Nardozzi said Coronel’s involvement in the organization was minor. “While the overall effect of the defendant’s conduct was significant, the defendant’s actual role was a minimal one. The defendant acted primarily in support of her husband,” he said.

Nardozzi added that after her arrest she “quickly accepted responsibility for her criminal conduct.”

Coronel’s lawyer, Jeffrey Lichtman, who also represented Guzmán in 2019, said she deserved leniency. “She met Joaquín Guzmán when she was a minor. She was 17 years old, and she married him on her 18th birthday … I’m not sure that she could ever go back home,” he said.

Judge Contreras said he took Coronel’s background into consideration, and weighed up the well-being of her daughters in the sentence, given their father’s imprisonment.

“Good luck to you,” Contreras told her as the hearing concluded. “I hope that you raise your twins in a different environment than you’ve experienced today.”

With reports from Reuters 

Exclusive: Cal State blunder may mean loss of 3,000 new student housing beds

by Mikhail Zinshteyn

CalMatters

 

Thousands of students at California State University may lose out on affordable housing because the Cal State system misread the fine print of a new state student housing program.

The error — uncovered by CalMatters and acknowledged by Cal State officials — is straightforward but costly. In filling out paperwork required to get its portion of the $2 billion Gov. Gavin Newsom set aside for student housing, Cal State incorrectly assumed that it could use that money — and only that money — to build dorms and apartments for low-income students.

In reality, state rules allow Cal State to combine this limited pot of state money with outside funds, such as dollars from bonds the university regularly issues. Using a mix of funds allows a campus to either build larger structures to include more beds or combine projects to house more students.

The consequence for Cal State’s blunder: Unless state lawmakers intervene, as many as 3,000 students will be deprived of affordable housing.

CalMatters discovered the discrepancy by reviewing building applications, official correspondence and other documents related to the three-year, $2 billion Higher Education Student Housing Grant Program that the Legislature approved in this year’s state budget. Over that three-year period, Cal State is slated to receive $600 million from the grant program to build housing at low rents for students.

The error comes after a Cal State assistant vice chancellor implored the state to change the rules to accommodate more flexible spending.

The state housing program is seen as one way to defray much of the costs of college attendance. More than half of Cal State and UC students from California don’t pay for tuition, but campus rent can tack on as much as $11,000 a year for Cal State students, though federal grants can help cover those expenses.

Arguably hundreds of thousands of California university and community college students struggle to afford a stable place to live. University housing is typically cheaper than off-campus housing in the surrounding communities.

Fixing Cal State’s snafu may be difficult

The Cal State paperwork snafu directly affects the initial $150 million portion of funds carved out for the university system in this year’s state budget. Applications for using the funds were due by Oct. 31. Because the deadline came and went, a do-over for Cal State is tricky, said Rebecca Kirk, a project manager at the Department of Finance, an agency of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration that is overseeing management of the student housing grant money.

“Because that initial filing round had an established deadline of October 31, that was kind of the cut-off on the initial rounds,” she said in an interview. Fixing the error would be “a pretty significant potential change” to the proposals, Kirk said.

The department has until March 1 of next year to submit to the Legislature a list of recommended housing projects the state should fund. From there, lawmakers and the governor will ultimately decide what gets funded in either the state’s budget process or a standalone bill.

It’s unclear whether lawmakers could allow Cal State to come up with new construction plans to make better use of the money. The law governing these funds is silent on whether lawmakers can deviate from what campuses initially proposed in their applications.

“If CSU erroneously submitted their application based on a bureaucratic misunderstanding, we should give them every opportunity to correct it,” said Assemblymember Phil Ting, a Democrat from San Francisco who is chairperson of the Assembly’s budget committee, one of the two committees that’ll receive the Department of Finance’s recommendations. “Student housing is too important of an issue to let bureaucracy stand in the way.”

The speed at which the decisions have to be made is intentional: The law prioritizes affordable student housing projects that can start construction by the end of 2022.

The Cal State system owned up to its error when asked by CalMatters. The university “misinterpreted” the guidance that the Department of Finance gave campuses as “intending for the program to fund the student housing grant project in its entirety,” Vi San Juan, Cal State’s assistant vice chancellor in charge of construction, wrote in a statement. The Department of Finance’s guidance, shared with the state’s public higher education systems Oct. 7, said that “proposals that include funding contributions from other sources will be considered.”

Kirk said the system could revise its remaining proposals that aren’t funded in the first year of the program in the funding rounds for 2022 and 2023.

Mixing state and outside funds can mean more student housing

The potentially massive setback for students comes as a result of a misunderstanding of the rules by the Cal State system that has persisted for weeks. On Nov. 8, Robert Eaton, the Cal State assistant vice chancellor who oversees financing, mistakenly told lawmakers in a public hearing that the student housing grant program’s funds cannot be combined with other money. He then urged lawmakers to change the program’s rules to allow for that.

Doing so “would spread the grant dollars over a larger number of projects, thereby potentially providing affordability benefits to an even greater number of students,” Eaton said. The Cal State system can easily borrow money through its existing construction bond program. Eaton said that already about a third of Cal State’s $8.8 billion construction bond debt is for financing student housing.

Experts say now’s an especially ripe time to plan for housing construction because borrowing rates are so low. The savings from near-zero interest plus state housing dollars drive down the cost of construction, which leads to student savings because campuses can charge less for housing.

Jack McGrory, a Cal State trustee, said in an interview that if the system were allowed to use a mix of funds, it could build 5,000 to 6,000 beds rather than the roughly 3,300 it proposed. McGrory, a building developer in San Diego, spoke with CalMatters before it became clear that the flexibility Cal State sought was already built into the state student housing program.

It’s a tactic the University of California knew to pursue in its state student housing applications. UCLA, for example, wants to use $35 million in state grant money and $29 million of its own to build 179 doubles with private bathrooms. Because of the new housing grant’s affordability rules, rents per student will be $600 a month when the project is completed in 2025 — about a third of what UCLA typically charges for such accommodations, the UC application said.

UC Berkeley plans to use $100 million in state housing money in conjunction with about $200 million in UC bond money to bring down the rents students will eventually pay. Mixing the two pots of funds would allow the campus to add 300 additional beds at rents of $1,100 — about a third less than what other campus students pay.

The community college system, California’s largest public university system, does not typically build student housing.

A history of housing shortages

California’s foray into financing student housing is new. Previously, lawmakers approved some money for campuses to cover short-term rent or hotel fees for students experiencing homelessness.

Lawmakers’ growing interest in student housing is a reflection of their bid to have the UC and Cal State enroll more California students. The state plans to up enrollment by 15,000 students at the two systems next year — and more students means more pressure to house them.

Hundreds of UC students have resorted to living in hotels because campuses have no space for them and nearby apartments off-campus are either too expensive or unavailable. Eight UC campuses this fall had 7,500 students on housing waitlists. The Cal State system reported 8,700 students waitlisted for housing.

Two UC campuses — at Davis and Santa Cruz — are locked into legally binding deals with their local governments to expand enrollment only if they can add an equal amount of new beds. Legal disputes such as these have led to housing construction delays at UC Santa Cruz and an outright ban on expanding enrollment at UC Berkeley.

The housing squeeze exists despite the fact that Cal State and UC combined have built enough new housing for some 36,000 students since 2015 and plan to add another 21,000 slots in the near-future.

Another student housing solution

At the same November hearing where Cal State’s Robert Eaton incorrectly interpreted housing financing rules, the UC told lawmakers that it would benefit from a program in which the state gives the university system interest-free loans to build housing as another way to expand the affordable student housing stock. An influential lawmaker in higher-education, Sacramento Democratic Assemblymember Kevin McCarty, proposed such a bill this year but it was heavily revised and excluded the loan aspect when it finally passed.

UC San Diego Chancellor Pradeep K. Khosla said his campus would benefit from added state investment because it’s coming close to maxing out the amount of money it can borrow from the bond market. UC San Diego wants to build enough student housing to offer a four-year housing guarantee to all undergraduates with rents that are at least 20% below market rate. The campus has been in a construction frenzy to get there: Khosla said the campus has built 6,000 new beds since 2013 and plans another 10,000 by 2030. A “revolving loan” from the state at 0% interest would lead to enough savings for UC San Diego to reduce campus rents to 38% below market rate for the campus’s lowest-income students, Khosla said.

But other campuses are running out of land to build more housing. That may mean tearing down existing buildings to build taller ones. It’s another scenario in which the state’s increasing footprint in campus housing may play a key role.

And with another year of record high tax revenue appearing likely next year, the state’s lawmakers will have a lot of options to fund a new batch of big projects.

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