Latest news with #PuertoRicans
Yahoo
20 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Bad Bunny Shares Cryptic Instagram Message as Tourists in Puerto Rico Go Viral for Allegedly Killing Endangered Coquís
Some tourists went viral on Reddit after bragging about silencing Puerto Rico's iconic coquí frogs The post sparked backlash, with Puerto Ricans calling the act disrespectful to the island's culture and wildlife Bad Bunny responded on Instagram, amplifying the coquí's croak as a subtle but powerful defense of his home, Puerto RicoBad Bunny is once again using his platform to speak out for Puerto Rico, this time not just through his lyrics but through his actions and love for the island. On Wednesday, May 28, the global superstar, whose real name is Benito Martínez Ocasio, shared a cryptic message on Instagram Stories, which many took as a response to a growing controversy about the coquí, Puerto Rico's iconic little frog with the big voice. As per mitú, Bad Bunny posted a black screen with a drawn-out version of his song 'Qué Le Pasó a Hawaii' from his latest album Debi Tirar Mas Fotos, that featured the croak of the coquí turned way up. It all started when a Reddit post on the r/PuertoRicoTravel subreddit went viral. A tourist at a restaurant in Condado was reportedly overheard bragging about spraying something at their Airbnb to quiet the coquís. The coquís' nightly song is considered one of the island's most cherished and recognizable sounds. Puerto Rican content creators quickly pushed back, calling the move disrespectful to both local culture and native wildlife. Many locals called out the harmful action in the comments, writing: 'If you don't like the coquí, maybe Puerto Rico isn't the place for you.' Beyond being annoying to a few tourists, this issue touches on something much more serious. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 'Any person that injures, captures, or kills a Coquí guajón destroy its eggs, and/or modify its critical habitat is subject to penalties under Federal law.' Though the Coquí guajón is one species, the common coquí is found everywhere on the island. Nonetheless, their protection matters to both conservationists and island residents. For Bad Bunny, his Story wasn't just about frogs: It was about respect for the island, its culture and the people who live there. He's been sounding that alarm for a while now with Debi Tirar Mas Fotos, specifically his song 'Qué Le Pasó a Hawaii,' which warns against Puerto Rico following in Hawaii's footsteps with over-tourism and outside investments that in his eyes, have chipped away at Puerto Rico's identity. In the song, he sings, 'They want to take the river and the beach away from me ... They want my neighborhood and my grandma gone.' Throughout the track, the coquí's croak echoes briefly in the background. Alongside the album, he released a short film, which was a visual love letter to Puerto Rico. Never miss a story — sign up for to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. It features 'Toad Concho,' a frog mascot that's part playful character and part symbol for the island's vulnerable wildlife. Like the song, the film reinforces what's at stake. For many Puerto Ricans, the coquí isn't just a frog; it's home. And with one simple Instagram post, Bad Bunny managed to remind the world of that. Read the original article on People
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
Commentary: The Blue Origin flight reminds us that there is no feminism without environmentalism
The recent Blue Origin space mission, and its all-female crew, faced widespread criticism for their rocket's climate impact. Although the purported mission of Blue Origin is to 'restore and sustain Earth,' a few minutes in space is known to release more planet-warming carbon dioxide than 1 billion people will in their entire lifetime. Experts predict an increase in space tourism over the coming decades, potentially accelerating global warming in a world already struggling to combat its effects. The historic all-female space crew was assembled to promote female representation in space — a worthy undertaking since nearly 90% of the over 700 people who have traveled to space are men. But the Blue Origin flight also showed the world that privileged women can increasingly, thanks to space tourism, pollute Earth just as easily as wealthy men have for decades. Despite the critical need for women's equality, the effects of climate change are far from gender neutral. I teach about the health impacts of climate change and have taken care of many women during my 15 years as a primary care physician. The unique physiology of women and social roles and societal expectations place women at disproportionately higher risk from climate-fueled disasters and warming temperatures. Reproductive stages such as menstruation, pregnancy and nursing increase women's climate vulnerability. The heightened metabolic and/or nutritional demands during these times make women more dependent on resources such as food and water that are threatened by climate change and extreme weather events. Increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide may worsen dietary deficiencies in reproductive-age women by reducing crop levels of critical nutrients such as iron, folate and protein. Extreme heat, increasingly a norm rather than an exception, is particularly harmful for pregnant women, raising their likelihood of preterm delivery and high blood pressure. Higher temperatures also increase preterm birth by increasing levels of the harmful air pollutant called ground-level ozone. Because pregnant women have faster breathing rates, they are also more susceptible to going into preterm labor and having babies with low birth weight from inhaling wildfire smoke. Despite the incremental progress toward gender equality in U.S. homes, women continue to manage disproportionate amounts of caregiving and household activities. Climate change, a known 'threat multiplier,' is poised to worsen existing inequities. The COVID-19 pandemic, despite being a different type of crisis, provided a sneak preview of this exacerbation of inequities. From February 2020 to January 2022, 1.1 million women left the labor force — accounting for 63% of all jobs lost. This disparity was even greater for mothers. Given the continued disparities of labor in the home, women face unique challenges during and after extreme weather events. In the weeks following Hurricane Maria, millions of Puerto Ricans were left without power and drinkable water. Women washed laundry by hand and collected and boiled rainwater for bathing and consumption — adding hours to their daily routines. The physical and emotional toll on Puerto Rican women during this time was immeasurable. This is not to say that women shouldn't continue participating in important space missions. Women have made critical contributions to space science and benefited from its findings. Several environmentally beneficial inventions, including solar panels, satellite detection of wildfires and energy efficient insulation, are the result of innovations related to space travel. Yet the Blue Origin flight is a good reminder that there is no feminism without environmentalism. When Eleanor Roosevelt said women 'cannot refuse to acknowledge' their differences from men, she also highlighted those differences as the basis of women's activism. Women certainly bear the brunt of the climate crisis, but they are also at the front line of solutions. Successful women's activism has always been grounded in collaboration and inclusion. Time and time again, we see that when women are lifted out of poverty and given equal rights, all of society is uplifted. When women are part of decision-making, solutions are more effective and inclusive. Protecting the planet is no exception because racism, poverty and patriarchy worsen the impact of climate change for everyone on it. Yes, wealthy women will increasingly be able to visit space as tourists, but should they, given the price paid by environmental impacts on other women? Because the reality is, most women won't be able to escape climate change on a rocket ship. Women have changed the world before, and they can do it again, but they aren't going to do it by taking day trips into outer space. To protect our communities and save the one planet we have will take unity, empathy, collaboration and cooperation beyond class divides. There is no better time than now to start. ____ Dr. Sheetal Khedkar Rao is an internal medicine physician and assistant professor of clinical medicine at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She is on the board of Illinois Clinicians for Climate Action and a public voices fellow through The OpEd Project. _____
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Yahoo
What happens when ‘at-risk' youth reach for better lives?
Editor's note: This story is part of 'Hard Times,' a special report by The Republican on the challenge of healing from civic trauma. She thought it was normal. Watching people work nonstop. Watching them take extra jobs to keep the lights on. Using candles when they couldn't. 'People who live their life worrying about where their next paycheck is going to come from,' said Janeyah Madera. 'People who worry about whether they have enough to pay the rent.' Madera, a 17-year-old junior at Holyoke High School, watched teenagers drop out of school year after year. 'I thought everything was normal,' she said. 'I normalized it for so long.' Until someone set her straight. While at Holyoke High, she met a teenager from Pa'lante Transformative Justice, a nonprofit with a mission to build 'youth power to heal and transform interpersonal harm and systemic injustices.' 'And they were like, 'No,'' Madera recalled while sitting with a friend at Pa'lante's Linden Street center in Holyoke. 'That's not the way things should be. I never knew. I just thought that's the way things work.' At Pa'lante, she learned about the school-to-prison pipeline. 'The school-to-prison pipeline targets people who look like me,' said Madera, who was ready to drop out of school before she joined Pa'lante. 'I'm just really grateful I found Pa'lante when I did.' Her friend Nichelle Rivera was sitting beside her on a couch in a second-floor room of Palante's Victorian home. 'I was a real quiet person, and Nichelle had to break me out of that,' she said, looking over at her friend. 'She used to come up to me, no matter how much I didn't want to talk, and be like, 'How you doing? You okay? What are you coloring? What are you reading?'' Eventually, Madera followed in Rivera's footsteps and became a peer leader at Pa'lante, helping more teenagers realize their potential. 'You're born with an endless amount of possibilities,' Madera said. The name Pa'lante is a reference to the Young Lords, a group of young people of color, primarily Puerto Ricans, who worked to address racism, police injustice, poor health care and tenants' rights in the 1960s and '70s. Inside Pa'lante's three-story home, inspirational murals decorate the wood-paneled walls. Pockets of young people talk and laugh, while others fiddle on their cellphones. In a large downstairs room, a group dances salsa while another group cooks in an upstairs kitchen and plays Nintendo video games on a big screen television. Connecting local kids is not accidental. 'It's one of our main goals,' said Christopher Lora, a youth leadership coordinator. 'When we come together, we build power and we can use that power to transform systems of oppression.' When asked about the hardships and trauma that young people experience living in urban poverty, Lora immediately brought up the school-to-prison pipeline. It's a system that pushes students out of schools and into prisons. 'With being pushed out comes different things,' he said. 'Because of being pushed out, the student has to find a way to make money.' A study from the National Library of Medicine found that the school-to-prison pipeline traps adolescents in the criminal justice system. Lora said schools use suspensions and 'emergency removals' to force certain students out of school and onto the streets. A federal report, 'Exploring the School-to-Prison Pipeline: How School Suspensions Influence Incarceration During Young Adulthood,' supports Lora's experience. 'Our findings demonstrated that youth who experienced a suspension between grades 7 and 12 experienced significantly higher odds of incarceration as young adults, relative to youth who were never suspended,' the report said. Pa'lante fights back by showing up for local teenagers. 'We bring them in and, in a transformative way, we tailor our work to their needs,' Lora said. Madera's friend, Nichelle Rivera, said Pa'lante is 'transformative' because it is inclusive. As a peer leader, she connects with each person who walks into Pa'lante's youth drop-in center daily. Upstairs, there's a chill space they call the 'meta.' 'We are in touch with everybody in the meta,' she said. 'We try to make sure everybody's included in the space so that nobody's left out and left behind.' Everyone is welcome. 'No matter where you're coming from or your background, your sexuality, your ethnicity, it doesn't matter,' Rivera said. 'We try to accept everybody.' Rivera, who's 17, knows what many of her Holyoke peers are going through. 'I came from struggle after struggle thinking that life wouldn't get better,' she said. When she was 10, her grandmother died and she and her mother lost their home. They bounced from shelter to shelter. 'My mother was working when she was in the shelter from nine to nine,' she said. 'It wasn't even a nine-to-five. I didn't see my mother for most of the day.' That's why she looks up to her. 'When I think about transformative justice, I think of my mother,' she said. In her story, Rivera finds strength and resilience. 'It's just amazing where I've come from to where I am now,' she said. 'The school-to-prison pipeline tries to catch me, but I just beat it down.' She's proud. 'My story is powerful,' she said. 'My story needs to be heard.' Kids who grow up in the system get judged fast, she said. People see them as 'bad,' she said, 'but that's not the truth.' 'Your story is powerful, too,' she said. 'You're amazing no matter where you come from.' Such affirmations changed Madera, Rivera's friend. 'I thought school wasn't for me,' she said. 'I thought I'm never gonna get anywhere. I was like, 'Who am I? I'm nobody.'' But that started to change when Madera found Pa'lante. 'I have a community of people here that I can lean on for help,' she said. That connection changed how she saw everything. 'When I joined, they taught me that I am somebody,' she said. 'That if I want to make a change, I can do it. And if I want to go to college, I can do it. And if I want to graduate, I can do it. I have power and I am amazing.' Read the original article on MassLive.
E&E News
22-05-2025
- Business
- E&E News
DOE redirects $365M for Puerto Rico solar, storage projects
The Trump administration said Wednesday it is redirecting $365 million intended to expand rooftop solar and storage in Puerto Rico to the island's unreliable power grid. The Biden administration had planned to use the funds, which were part of the $1 billion that Congress allocated for Puerto Rico in the 2022 omnibus bill, to pay for solar and battery storage installations at community health care facilities and certain multifamily housing properties. It was part of an effort to wean Puerto Ricans off their dependence on the fossil fuel-based power grid, which is prone to power outages. But the Trump Energy Department, which announced it was reviewing the funding, said in a statement Wednesday the funds now 'will be deployed to support practical fixes and emergency activities that offer a faster, more impactful solution to the current crisis, benefiting critical facilities like hospitals and community centers.' Advertisement The Trump administration's move has won the support of Puerto Rico Gov. Jenniffer González-Colón, an ally of President Donald Trump.
Associated Press
22-05-2025
- Health
- Associated Press
IGC Pharma's Puerto Rico CALMA Trial Site Offers Strategic Opportunity in High-Prevalence Alzheimer's Market
POTOMAC, MD / ACCESS Newswire / May 22, 2025 / IGC Pharma, Inc. ('IGC', or the 'Company') (NYSE American:IGC) today announced a clinical trial site at Santa Cruz Behavioral in Puerto Rico for its CALMA Phase 2 clinical trial, investigating IGC-AD1 for agitation in Alzheimer's disease. This strategic site directly addresses the significant impact of Alzheimer's in the region. Approximately 12.5% of Puerto Ricans over the age of 65 have Alzheimer's, a figure notably higher than the roughly 10% prevalence observed in older non-Hispanic white populations in the U.S. This disparity is influenced by factors such as Puerto Rico's rapidly aging demographic and unique genetic predispositions. The heightened prevalence translates into a substantial economic burden, with medical care for dementia in Puerto Rico accounting for over a quarter of total societal healthcare costs, a proportion higher than in the continental U.S. 'We're pleased to work with Santa Cruz Behavioral ('SCB') as a trial site for our CALMA study, expanding our reach in Puerto Rico alongside a previously announced site at the University of Puerto Rico,' said Ram Mukunda, CEO of IGC Pharma. 'Puerto Rico represents a high-need and underserved population in Alzheimer's care, and SCB strengthens our ability to evaluate IGC-AD1 across diverse patient populations. Diversity in clinical trials not only improves scientific validity but also supports broader regulatory and commercial success.' For IGC Pharma's investors, this initiative represents a strategic imperative. By engaging a vast, underserved market with a high disease prevalence, diverse clinical trials are not only ethically sound but also enhance the commercial viability of therapies by ensuring universal effectiveness. Santa Cruz Behavioral in Puerto Rico, known for its outstanding mental healthcare services from a biopsychosocial perspective, serves as a key partner in this endeavor. Patients and caregivers interested in participating in the CALMA trial should please contact Santa Cruz Behavioral in Bayamon Puerto Rico. About IGC-AD1 and the CALMA Trial IGC-AD1 is IGC Pharma's investigational cannabinoid-based therapy currently in a Phase 2 multicenter, double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled study (CALMA) evaluating its safety and efficacy for treating agitation in Alzheimer's dementia. Agitation affects up to 76% of Alzheimer's patients, often leading to increased hospitalization and caregiver burden. IGC-AD1 acts as a partial CB1 receptor agonist with anti-neuroinflammatory properties, targeting key pathways involved in neuroinflammation, oxidative stress, and neurotransmitter imbalances. For more information on the CALMA trial, visit: About IGC Pharma (dba IGC): IGC Pharma (NYSE American:IGC) is a clinical-stage biotechnology company leveraging AI to develop innovative treatments for Alzheimer's and metabolic disorders. Our lead asset, IGC-AD1, is a cannabinoid-based therapy currently in a Phase 2 trial ( CALMA ) for agitation in Alzheimer's dementia. Our pipeline includes TGR-63, targeting amyloid plaques, and early-stage programs focused on neurodegeneration, tau proteins, and metabolic dysfunctions. We integrate AI to accelerate drug discovery, optimize clinical trials, and enhance patient targeting. With 30 patent filings and a commitment to innovation, IGC Pharma is advancing breakthrough therapies. Forward-Looking Statements: This press release contains forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are based largely on IGC Pharma's expectations and are subject to several risks and uncertainties, certain of which are beyond IGC Pharma's control. Actual results could differ materially from these forward-looking statements as a result of, among other factors, the Company's failure or inability to commercialize one or more of the Company's products or technologies, including the products or formulations described in this release, or failure to obtain regulatory approval for the products or formulations, where required, or government regulations affecting AI or the AI algorithms not working as intended or producing accurate predictions; general economic conditions that are less favorable than expected; the FDA's general position regarding cannabis- and hemp-based products; and other factors, many of which are discussed in IGC Pharma's U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ('SEC') filings. IGC incorporates by reference its Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the SEC on June 24, 2024, and on Form 10-Qs filed with the SEC on August 7, 2024, November 12, 2024, and February 14, 2025, as if fully incorporated and restated herein. Considering these risks and uncertainties, there can be no assurance that the forward-looking information contained in this release will occur. Contact Information Rosalyn Christian IMS Investor Relations [email protected] (203) 972-9200 SOURCE: IGC Pharma, Inc. press release
