Man dies in hot air balloon fire during festival
ZACATECAS, Mexico (WJW) — A man died Sunday after falling from a hot air balloon that caught fire during a festival.
It happened during the inaugural Enrique Estrada Fair in central Mexico.
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The Secretary General of the Zacatecas government, Rodrigo Reyes Mugüerza, confirmed the fatal accident in a Facebook post, saying the man died during the balloon festival.
'I regret to inform that… a person lost his life after an unfortunate incident while on board a hot air balloon,' Reyes Mugüerza wrote in Spanish.
The incident occurred around 8 a.m. local time, about 19 miles outside the city of Zacatecas, according to Riviera Maya News.
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Video footage shared on social media showed the balloon bursting into flames before taking off from the ground with a person still attached to it.
Authorities are investigating the cause of the fire.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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New York Post
6 hours ago
- New York Post
Moped-riding NYC bully rips $1,300 chain off 5-year-old boy's neck: sources
A moped-riding mugger ripped a $1,300 chain off of a 5-year-old boy's neck then sped off on a Bronx street Saturday afternoon, according to cops and law enforcement sources. The unidentified brute drove the two-wheeler up to the young child as he was walking to his father in front of an apartment building on Marion Avenue and carried out the sudden heist around 4 p.m., police and sources said. Police are looking for the mugger who took off on a moped. DCPI The boy was left with redness and swelling to his neck, and needed to be treated at the scene by EMS. The stolen chain is worth around $1,300, sources said. The 5-year-old boy had redness to his neck. DCPI Police are now searching for the thief who rode off northbound on Marion Avenue with a multicolored hat, black jacket and black jeans, according to surveillance footage captured by the NYPD. Anyone with information on the robbery can call NYPD's Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-8477 or for Spanish 1-888-577-4782.
Yahoo
7 hours ago
- Yahoo
WA farmworkers fear reporting sexual harassment to federal agency under Trump
Marlen, right, a peer trainer for the BASTA Coalition of Washington, and Isabel Reyes-Paz, the coalition's director, lead trainings primarily for Mexican immigrant women about sexual harassment of farmworkers in the Yakima Valley, an agricultural region in Central Washington. (Photo by Jake Parrish/InvestigateWest) Marlen, a 35-year-old mother from Mexico, knows what farmworkers like her are supposed to do if they're sexually harassed on the job: Tell the harasser to stop, document it, then report it to company leadership. If none of that works, get legal help. This could mean filing a complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the government agency responsible for enforcing federal employment discrimination laws. Marlen leads training sessions in Spanish for other Latina farmworkers in central Washington about sexual harassment, following guidance drawn from the EEOC. In agricultural areas like Yakima County, where more than half the population is Hispanic or Latino, many victims are immigrants who speak little English, while many perpetrators are supervisors with the power to punish those who report them or refuse their demands. So at the end of 2023, when Marlen's supervisor at a large fruit farm in the Yakima Valley started leering at her, making crude comments about women's bodies like 'nice camel legs,' and filming her as she stood on a ladder cutting tree branches, she reported it to a manager, she said. Then she was assigned to more physically demanding jobs, such as digging holes in rocky ground and moving heavy wooden posts — work that typically only men would do and that isolated her from co-workers, according to her documentation of the incidents. 'It makes me feel like it was wrong of me to report him,' Marlen said in Spanish. She asked to go by her first name for this article because she still works for the company. 'Like I made a mistake, when the one who made the mistake was him.' But if things get worse for Marlen, she probably wouldn't report it to the EEOC, the commission that for nearly three decades has defended immigrant farmworkers like her against workplace sexual harassment and abuse — no matter their immigration status. 'What are they going to do with the information we give them? Are they going to help us or make things worse for us?' she said. 'I feel like — not just in cases of harassment, but with anything happening with someone right now — people won't report it because of fear.' As the Trump administration's immigration crackdown reaches into agricultural communities across the country and the EEOC shifts priorities to align with those of the president, it's unclear to these farmworkers and their attorneys whether the agency will continue to protect them. In one of several actions contributing to a growing fear that the EEOC is being politicized by President Trump, the commission's Trump-appointed acting chair, Andrea Lucas, announced in February that the commission will help deter illegal migration by enforcing employment antidiscrimination laws against employers that 'illegally prefer non-American workers.' And in the name of protecting women from workplace sexual harassment, Lucas also vowed to roll back the Biden administration's 'gender identity agenda.' The commission then moved to dismiss several lawsuits against companies alleging discrimination against transgender and nonbinary workers. The commission declined to comment when InvestigateWest asked if workers can continue filing complaints without fear that their immigration status will be used against them. 'The EEOC was playing a very critical role in being able to protect survivors of workplace sexual harassment, including egregious rape. The sense that we're getting is that they're no longer going to be that kind of an agency,' said Blanca Rodriguez, deputy director of advocacy for Columbia Legal Services, a nonprofit legal aid program in Washington. 'They're going to be an agency that immigrant communities are going to fear. And that is not only going to do harm during the Trump administration, but for years to come.' While it's unclear whether the federal commission would in fact share people's immigration information with other agencies like Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the uncertainty alone is deterring farmworkers from reporting sexual harassment and abuse to government and legal organizations, according to attorneys and advocates in the region. The Northwest Justice Project, a nonprofit law firm that represents low-income people in Washington, recorded 16 cases involving sexual harassment of a farmworker in 2024. It had 21 such cases in 2023 and 17 in 2022. So far in 2025, as Trump returned to the White House, the firm has recorded only two cases (although the Northwest Justice Project cautioned this could be an undercount because the data is not yet fully entered in its system). These cases may also take a back seat as the Washington Attorney General's Office, an alternative to the federal government for combating sexual violence against farmworkers, spends more of its limited resources pushing back against the Trump administration's actions, leaving these workers with few — if any — options for recourse. The state Attorney General's Office has sued the Trump administration more than a dozen times over issues like birthright citizenship, gender-affirming care for youth, education funding and health funding. 'It's a terrible outcome if we have to spend all of our energy responding to the federal government, and thus leaving workers in Washington without any protection because the EEOC may not do its job,' said the office's Civil Rights Division Chief Colleen Melody. 'Resources are a major concern, and burnout will be a huge concern if we don't get additional resources to help do this work.' In 1991, a federal court case in California shaped the future of undocumented workers' rights. In a victory for immigrant rights, the judge ruled that undocumented workers are covered under Title VII, a section of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that prohibits discrimination against employees based on national origin, race, sex and more. The ruling opened the door for millions of immigrant workers to file discrimination charges with the EEOC. For William Tamayo, a now-retired attorney who represented the plaintiff, a woman from Mexico, it was just the beginning of a trailblazing career protecting immigrants from sex-based discrimination. When Tamayo joined the EEOC as a regional attorney in 1995, the agency had never before sued an agricultural company over sexual harassment of a farmworker. 'Largely, the presence of the federal government was the immigration service. So I had to figure out, 'How would they trust me and trust the EEOC?'' Tamayo said. 'It was really hard work.' His first major breakthrough came in 1999. One of the nation's largest lettuce growers, Tanimura & Antle, settled a case with the EEOC involving a single mother from El Salvador who said that a hiring official forced her to have sex to get a seasonal job picking crops. Since then, the EEOC has brought more than 50 agricultural companies to court over such allegations, primarily under Tamayo's leadership, leading to improved sexual harassment trainings and over $35 million awarded to farmworkers throughout the country. This doesn't include the many cases resolved through mediation and settlements before a lawsuit was filed. Allegations range from pervasive verbal harassment to violent assaults: A woman whose supervisor held pruning shears to her throat and repeatedly raped her at a tree farm in Oregon's Willamette Valley. Managers and employees at a California raisin company who, for over a decade, groped and demanded sex from female workers. A pregnant woman whose manager, after she rejected his almost daily sexual advances at a fruit packing warehouse in central Washington, fired her husband and assigned her to lift 40-pound boxes without help. In most cases, the women who reported sexual violence also reported consequences for doing so — they lost their jobs, were demoted, isolated from co-workers. Sexual harassment and retaliation are illegal under federal and state law. Yet studies estimate that 65% to 80% of farmworker women in the U.S. agricultural industry experience workplace sexual harassment. The nationwide issue, spotlighted by a 2013 PBS Frontline documentary, 'Rape in the Fields,' has been especially scrutinized in California, Washington and Oregon, which have among the highest employment levels in agricultural industries of all states, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The commission's commitment to protecting people's immigration information is key to farmworkers' ability to speak out about sexual abuse and harassment, according to Tamayo, who retired from the EEOC in 2021 after 20 years as a regional attorney and another six years as district director overseeing investigations across the western United States. 'Certainly, if the EEOC started asking about immigration status, that would be the end of these farmworker cases,' he said. 'It has nothing to do with whether she was raped or not.' Attorneys like Rodriguez and Michael Meuter, vice president of legal affairs and general counsel at California Rural Legal Assistance, say their farmworker clients in Washington and California are now deciding not to file sexual harassment charges with the commission. The level of fear among immigrant clients is unmatched even compared to the first Trump administration when anti-immigrant rhetoric escalated, they say. 'I think during the last administration, it was harder to get cases approved for litigation. But I think partly because Bill Tamayo — people who care about immigrant workers like him — were still at the EEOC, I still saw the EEOC conduct investigations,' Rodriguez said. 'Things are completely different now. There is no trust at all in the EEOC.' Despite the successes that the EEOC had under Tamayo's leadership, filing complaints with the commission has never been a silver bullet. Strict filing deadlines, language barriers and fear of reporting have long stood in the way of farmworkers facing sexual harassment on the job, attorneys say. Of 8,191 sexual harassment charges resolved through the EEOC in fiscal year 2024, 26.7% were closed for administrative reasons like untimeliness, according to the commission's enforcement and litigation statistics. Nearly half (47%) were dismissed because the commission didn't find reasonable cause to support the discrimination claim. In Oregon, the EEOC hasn't litigated a farmworker sexual harassment case since 2013, court records show. Reporting to the commission, however, can still prove beneficial because it preserves workers' Title VII rights — they receive a 'Right to Sue' notice when the agency closes its investigation, enabling them to file their own Title VII lawsuits. In states with stronger worker protections like Washington, California and Oregon, farmworkers can instead take complaints to their state governments, an option that might feel safer for immigrants who distrust the current federal administration. But those routes have limitations as well. In Washington, for example, the Washington State Human Rights Commission enforces state law prohibiting sexual harassment. While the state commission itself doesn't bring cases to court, it can negotiate agreements with companies and refer cases to the state Attorney General's Office. 'We want every farmworker — regardless of immigration status, job type, or background — to know that they have the right to live and work free from sexual harassment and discrimination,' said Washington State Human Rights Commission Executive Director Andreta Armstrong in an email statement to InvestigateWest. But workers have just a six-month window from the date of the harm to file a complaint with the state commission, and a backlog of cases means that complaints can take years to be investigated. Of 44 sexual harassment complaints against agricultural companies received by the Washington commission since 2015, just eight ended in resolutions through settlements or agreements with their employers, according to InvestigateWest's review of data provided by the agency. Nearly 70% of cases were closed for administrative reasons or after the commission found 'no reasonable cause.' Another avenue that has proven committed to combating sexual violence against farmworkers — the Washington Attorney General's Office — is also narrowing under the Trump administration. Since launching its civil rights unit in 2015, the office has sued five different agricultural companies on behalf of farmworkers who alleged sexual harassment or sexual abuse on the job. Although state law protects everyone from sexual harassment, regardless of immigration or citizenship status, many farmworkers still fear that coming forward may put them at risk for attention by immigration officials, said Melody, the office's civil rights division chief. This fear has been 'noticeably true' since the 2024 election, Melody added. 'Witnesses tell us that they have a story to tell, but they're afraid and unwilling to come forward and tell it,' she said. 'They may have family members who are impacted. They may have colleagues who are impacted, and they fear that coming forward may expose any of those people to retribution.' For immigrant farmworkers who are weighing the risks of speaking out, Melody recommends they ask questions like: Will my immigration status be necessary for this investigation? Will it be shared? With whom will it be shared? 'In the Washington State Attorney General's Office, the answer is, 'We almost always don't need to know, and we don't share it with anyone,'' she said. 'I'm not sure what the answer is at the EEOC right now.' On a Saturday morning in May, Marlen gathered with seven other women in a classroom in Sunnyside, a small city in the heart of the Yakima Valley. Over a table of tamales and coffee, they painted bandanas for the BASTA Coalition of Washington, which provides sexual harassment trainings for farmworkers in the state. They filled the white cloth with messages in Spanish and English like, 'Farmworker women's voices are key!' The women, who each found agricultural work in central Washington after leaving Mexico, spoke about how to weigh the importance of reporting sexual harassment against people's fear of losing their jobs or being deported for doing so. Marlen said the harassment she experienced in the apple orchards has improved recently, after she took some time off from work for a family matter. A few months ago, when she was being isolated from her co-workers in what she believes was retaliation for reporting her supervisor, she would've said she regretted reporting the harassment. But now, despite the risks, she stands by her decision. 'There comes a time when you get overwhelmed and say, 'Why did I report it? I should've just kept quiet,'' Marlen said. 'But if tomorrow it happens to my daughter, I feel like no — someone has to make the change.' That decision, however, may not be right for everyone. BASTA, which means 'enough' in Spanish, currently lists the EEOC as a resource for workers facing sexual harassment. The coalition's director, Isabel Reyes-Paz, said they might need to reconsider that recommendation, or at least provide a caveat: 'We don't know what's going to happen with the current administration. We can't guarantee that your legal status information is protected or not,' Reyes-Paz said. The coalition is also grappling with federal funding cuts, as grants that it had relied on to grow — like those administered by the Department of Labor to support women's employment — are being slashed. 'What are we going to do?' one woman said in Spanish at the meeting in May. 'How are we going to encourage them to seek help if we're also thinking the same thing? We're all afraid.' InvestigateWest ( is an independent news nonprofit dedicated to investigative journalism in the Pacific Northwest. Reporter Kelsey Turner can be reached at kelsey@ or 503-893-2501.
Miami Herald
17 hours ago
- Miami Herald
2,000 National Guard troops will be sent to LA amid clashes over immigration raids
LOS ANGELES — The Trump administration said it would send 2,000 National Guard troops into Los Angeles after a second day in which protesters confronted immigration agents during raids of local businesses. The move marks a major escalation in Trump's crackdown on illegal immigration and came amid concerns from some officials in California. The Guard has been deployed to Los Angeles previously, but it has been during widespread civil unrest, including the upheaval associated with the 2020 protests following the murder of George Floyd, as well as the riots that occurred after the Rodney King verdict in 1992. Los Angeles has seen several violent clashes during the recent immigration raids, but they have been limited to isolated areas including the Home Depot in Paramount, a location in L.A.'s fashion district and at the Civic Center. Jessica Levinson, a law professor at Loyola Law School, noted that when the National Guard was sent to L.A. before, it was because we as a state requested it and it was coordinated. Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the University of California, Berkeley Law School, said in a text to the Los Angeles Times that Trump has the authority under the Insurrection Act of 1807 to federalize the national guard units of states to suppress 'any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy' that 'so hinders the execution of the laws.' But he called the move very troubling. Such deployment typically happen during 'extreme circumstances... here it seems it was an early response. And I fear that it is to send a message to protesters of the willingness of the federal government to use federal troops to quell protests.' In the most serious incident, a crowd gathered in Paramount in a protest that escalated over the course of the day into a fiery and tumultuous clash with federal agents. By afternoon, the confrontation near a Home Depot at 6400 Alondra Blvd. was declared an unlawful assembly, and officials warned protesters in Spanish and English to quit the scene immediately. During the protest, at least one protester was injured, witnesses reported, and a Border Patrol official said an agent was hurt. Meanwhile, Tom Homan, the Trump administration's 'border czar,' said officials were cracking down hard on the unrest and that the National Guard would be deployed to the city Saturday night. California Gov. Gavin Newsom confirmed Saturday that the federal government was moving to take over the California National Guard and deploy 2,000 soldiers. Newsom criticized the federal action in a statement Saturday evening, saying that local law enforcement was already mobilized and that sending in troops was a move that was 'purposefully inflammatory' and would 'only escalate tensions.' '(T)here is currently no unmet need,' Newsom said. 'This is the wrong mission and will erode public trust.' At the Paramount protest, chants of 'Fuera ICE' — ICE, get out — could be heard as flash-bang grenades deployed by federal agents lighted up the scene. The agents appeared to include members of Border Patrol, the U.S. Marshals Service and Homeland Security Investigations. A group of protesters on a street corner shouted expletives and that there was 'nothing but noise.' Shortly afterward, the grenades exploded at their feet, causing them to briefly scatter. A Los Angeles Times reporter watched one protester gather a bag of trash and light it on fire in the middle of Alondra Boulevard, half a block from where immigration agents were gathered. 'This is a difficult time for our city. As we recover from an unprecedented natural disaster, many in our community are feeling fear following recent federal immigration enforcement actions across Los Angeles County. Reports of unrest outside the city, including in Paramount, are deeply concerning. We've been in direct contact with officials in Washington, D.C., and are working closely with law enforcement to find the best path forward,' L.A. Mayor Karen Bass said after the National Guard deployment was announced. Saturday's scene in Paramount followed raids across Los Angeles on Friday that led to the arrests of 44 people on suspicion of immigration violations, and another on suspicion of obstructing justice. 'Federal law enforcement operations are proceeding as planned this weekend in Los Angeles County,' U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said on X as the standoff unfolded. 'I urge the public to refrain from interfering with these lawful actions. Anyone who obstructs federal agents will face arrest and prosecution.' In his Fox News interview, Homan, the president's former acting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement director and now 'border czar,' made unsubstantiated claims about the people who had been arrested, saying they included child sex offenders, gang members and national security threats. 'They arrested a lot of bad people yesterday and today,' Homan said. 'We're making Los Angeles safer and Mayor (Karen) Bass ought to be thanking us for making her city safer.' Homan also remarked that ICE agents were often wearing masks as they conducted raids because they were worried about their families being doxxed. In Paramount, a city that is 82% Latino, protesters gathered along Alondra Boulevard Saturday after reports that ICE officers were targeting people at a Home Depot where day laborers commonly gather in search of work. A group of protesters stationed themselves near the Alondra exit of the 710 Freeway, as a second gathered by the Home Depot. Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies arrived on the scene about 11 a.m. The department clarified in a statement that it 'was not involved in any federal law enforcement operations or actions,' and was present only to assist with traffic and crowd control. By Saturday afternoon, bright orange shopping carts from Home Depot and a blue recycling bin were scattered across the boulevard. The air was acrid with smoke. Federal agents deployed round after round of flash-bangs and pepper balls. Some of the projectiles struck protesters, witnesses said. One woman among the protest group appeared to be bleeding, and another man was treated for injuries. 'There were some individuals around him throwing bricks. One of the windows got shattered and he was knocked unconscious. He seemed in a pretty bad state,' said Nico Thompson-Lleras, an attorney with the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights who witnessed the incident. He said it was unclear whether the man was hit by a vehicle, a weapon or something else. Paramount Mayor Peggy Lemons, who was present at the scene, said she had not learned of any arrests at the Home Depot. She said the confrontation appeared to have started after protesters spotted immigration officers staging in a nearby business plaza where DHS has an office. She encouraged the crowd to stay calm to avoid violence. She said she was told that the Department of Homeland Security was targeting Home Depots across the county in search of undocumented residents. But she has had little communication from federal authorities about their actions in the city she represents, which is about 4.5 square miles and home to about 57,000 people. 'We don't know what was happening, or what their target was. To think that there would be no heightening of fear and no consequences from the community doesn't sound like good preparation to me,' she said. 'Above all, there is no communication and things are done on a whim. And that creates chaos and fear.' The city of Paramount released a statement reaffirming it was not working with ICE or assisting the immigration operations in any way. 'As a city, we are committed to fostering a safe and welcoming environment for all members of our community — regardless of immigration status,' the statement read. There was no raid at the Paramount Home Depot on Saturday, a federal official told The Times. Helicopter footage from the scene showed law enforcement vehicles blocking access as they closed the road. Border Patrol agents stood lined up. Sheriff's deputies set off flash-bangs to clear a freeway exit of protesters. A U.S. Marshals Service bus approaching the location was surrounded by a crowd as it exited the freeway. Protesters kicked the vehicle and pushed back in an attempt to stop it, before another federal vehicle pulled up alongside the bus. An agent appeared to shoot tear gas to push the crowd back. Lindsay Toczylowski, chief executive of Immigrant Defenders Law Center, said in a post on X that ICE agents threw a teargas canister at two female attorneys with the organization, after they approached to ask calmly that they be allowed to see a warrant and observe the action. ICE did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the incident. 'ICE has brought their terror tactics and masked agents to#Paramount this morning - in my district,' wrote U.S. Rep Nanette D. Barragán, whose district includes Paramount, in a post on X. 'This is unacceptable. We will demand answers and accountability. For those out there - please stay safe, protest peacefully, and KNOW YOUR RIGHTS.' Protesters burned an American flag while others waved Mexican flags. Some began lining the boulevard with large cement bricks. One immigration agent was cut on his hand from a rock that sailed through his windshield, according to a social media post by U.S. Border Patrol chief Michael W. Banks. Federal officials struck an ominous tone. 'Multiple arrests have already been made for obstructing our operations,' FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino said on X. 'More are coming. We are pouring through the videos for more perpetrators. You bring chaos, and we'll bring handcuffs.' José Luis Solache Jr., the California Assembly member who represents the Paramount area that includes the Home Depot, said he was on the way to a community event when he saw Border Patrol cars exit the freeway. He decided to turn around. Solache said he arrived and began observing alongside other demonstrators in a peaceful effort when the agents started shooting off canisters in their direction, forcing him and others to run through the smoke. After identifying himself to agents, he tried to get information about what they were doing, but they would not answer his questions, he said. 'You see the community here, demonstrating that they don't want them here,' he said as flash-bangs went off nearby. 'Our hardworking communities are being targeted. These are hardworking families. These are not criminals. You're going to facilities where people are literally working.' Copyright (C) 2025, Tribune Content Agency, LLC. Portions copyrighted by the respective providers.
