CHOCOLATITO VS. MARTINEZ PRESS CONFERENCE
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BRASILIA (Reuters) – Brazilian Senate president Rodrigo Pacheco said on Wednesday that bills to curb rising fuel prices would be on the table next week amid renewed pressure on prices after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“More than ever, in the face of rising oil prices, we need to take steps to stop fuel prices from going up,” he wrote on Twitter, as crude prices surged past $110 a barrel.
One of the projects mentioned by Pacheco creates a stabilization fund for fuel prices, while the other changes the ICMS state tax calculation rules. According to the head of the upper chamber, both will be “on the Senate agenda” next week.
The sharp rise in fuel prices has contributed to double-digit inflation in Latin America’s largest economy. President Jair Bolsonaro, who seeks to boost his popularity ahead of elections in October, has already signaled support for proposals to cut taxes on fuels.
Economy Minister Paulo Guedes is firmly against the stabilization fund, but favors changes to the ICMS calculation. He has argued that measures could backfire if they weaken the real currency, which would push up imported products, inflation and interest.
In command of one of the most aggressive monetary tightening policies in the world, the Brazilian central bank has also said that short-term measures to tackle inflation could put upward pressure on prices over the longer term.
(Reporting by Maria Carolina Marcello; Writing by Marcela Ayres; Editing by Sandra Maler)
The post Brazil Senate president indicates voting on proposals to lower fuel prices as oil climbs appeared first on Shore News Network.
In today’s digital landscape, it is crucial for tech brands to establish and maintain strong online identities in order to stand out and thrive. This comprehensive guide delves into proven techniques that can help your tech brand accelerate growth through effective digital strategies. With a focus on readability, this article is structured to offer actionable insights and valuable information for those looking to enhance their digital presence and brand identity. Let’s get started with our in-depth exploration of boosting tech brand growth!
Knowing your target audience is the foundation of an effective digital identity, so it’s important to dedicate time and resources to understanding their needs, preferences, and pain points.
Market research helps you gather valuable insights about your target audience, competition, and industry trends. Begin by surveying your existing customers, utilizing social listening tools, and monitoring forums or review websites. This will help you identify opportunities to improve your products or services and to communicate more effectively with your audience.
By creating detailed buyer personas, you can better serve your audience through personalized marketing campaigns and targeted content. A comprehensive buyer persona should include demographic information, pain points, goals, and preferred communication channels.
A well-optimized website is essential for delivering a seamless user experience and improving search rankings, and should be an integral part of your digital identity.
Slow-loading websites contribute to high bounce rates and can hinder your digital visibility. Ensure your website performs at its best by minifying CSS and JavaScript files, compressing images, and leveraging browser caching.
As more users access websites from mobile devices, it’s crucial that your website is optimized for various screen sizes and devices types to deliver a consistent user experience.
Boost your website’s search ranking by optimizing your website’s on-page elements, such as title tags, meta descriptions, headers, and URL structure. Additionally, use target keywords throughout your website content, while maintaining a natural, informative, and engaging tone.
High-quality content not only strengthens your online presence but also helps build trust and credibility with your audience.
Highlight your unique value proposition by emphasizing your brand’s differentiation factors, be it innovative features or exceptional customer service. This allows you to create content that showcases your expertise and positions your brand as an industry leader.
Plan ahead by creating a content calendar that outlines your publishing schedule and content topics. This helps you maintain a consistent posting frequency and provides ongoing value to your audience.
Experiment with various content formats such as blog posts, videos, social media updates, infographics, and webinars, to keep your audience engaged and cater to their diverse content consumption preferences.
Harnessing the power of social media is essential for expanding your brand’s digital reach and fostering connections with your audience.
Select the social media platforms that are most relevant to your target audience and your content strategy. For example, if your audience is particularly active on LinkedIn, it’s important to maintain a strong presence there.
Interact with your followers by replying to comments, answering questions, and sharing user-generated content. This helps create a sense of community and fosters trust in your brand.
Keep track of important social media metrics, such as engagement, reach, and growth, to identify potential areas of improvement and optimize your strategy accordingly.
Partnering with complementary brands can expand your brand exposure and create mutually beneficial relationships.
Consider brands within your industry that offer complementary products or services, and approach them with collaboration proposals. Be sure to analyze potential long-term benefits and compatibility before entering into partnerships.
Joint content creation efforts, such as webinars, blog posts, or social media campaigns, can help grow your audience and increase brand exposure. Be sure to cross-promote content for maximum visibility.
Request referrals and testimonials from partners, as they may have clients who could benefit from your offerings. This not only builds credibility, but also helps to acquire new customers.
Measuring your digital strategy’s performance is essential for identifying areas that require improvement and iterating your approach to foster continued growth.
Establish key performance indicators for measuring your brand’s digital growth, such as website traffic, bounce rate, conversion rate, and social media engagement.
Utilize analytics tools such as Google Analytics, SEMrush, or Sprout Social to monitor your digital strategy’s success and to identify trends and patterns that may inform future efforts.
Regularly review and optimize your digital strategy based on data-driven insights, ensuring that your brand remains agile and adaptive to an ever-changing digital landscape.
In conclusion, a strong digital identity is essential for tech brand growth. By following these proven techniques, you can establish a solid online presence and tap into the vast potential of digital marketing to grow your business. Remember to always keep your audience in mind, create valuable content, and continually review and improve your strategy to stay ahead in the competitive tech industry.

The California High-Speed Rail Authority (CAHSRA) on February 25 released the Final Environmental Impact Report/Environmental Impact Statement for a key section of the California High-Speed Rail Project in Northern California.
The EIR/EIS for the approximately 90-mile section of the route connecting San Jose to Merced Project in Northern California will be under consideration for approval at a two-day board meeting on April 20 and 21, according to a press release from CAHSRA published on February 25.
“In the San Jose to Merced Project Section, high-speed trains will travel through or near the cities of Santa Clara, San Jose, Morgan Hill, Gilroy and Los Banos, connecting Silicon Valley and the Central Valley,” according to the press release. “The proposed preferred alternative alignment would include upgrading existing rail lines between San Jose and Gilroy and constructing a new high-speed rail alignment with more than 15 miles of tunnels through Pacheco Pass in the Diablo Range.”
Roger Rudick had the scoop on the final EIR/EIS in an article for Streetsblog California, calling the San Jose to Merced Project Section an “all-important connection.” Boris Lipkin, Northern California regional director for the project, is quoted in the article calling the EIR/EIS a big milestone for the project. Rudick’s coverage includes more detail on the recent history of planning and politics on the project.
I imply, take into consideration Virgo (August 23– September 22), your brave writer’s indication. Virgos are generally taken into consideration to be really buttoned-down, detail-oriented as well as systematic. I’m around as half-cracked as well as they come and also as much as systematic is worried, I never ever do anything the very same method two times.
Anyhow, for you classical Virgos, below’s your account, according to the professionals.
Analytical as well as currently smart, we can concur with. It does claim that we’re timid and also can be hard to land as a companion. When all those Aquarius and also Pisces are out there living it up, possibly that’s why we’re creating this on a Saturday evening.
The age of Virgo in the astrologists’ Great Year took area circa 13000-10750 BCE. It was the end of the Ice Age (well, we’re likewise thought about apart as well as trendy– it figures). Virgo IS stood for by a lady, you recognize.
The most effective suit for Virgo is Capricorn as well as the most awful is Aquarius. One point some professionals claim regarding the Virgo is that while they show up unsociable as well as awesome outside, they might be concealing feeling that is practically also extreme. We’re so thankful somebody identifies this that we might need to briefly vanish as well as weep behind-the-scenes someplace for a couple of mins.
A few of our favored writers and also various other popular numbers were likewise Virgos. Leonard Bernstein, Mary Godwin Shelley (writer of “Frankenstein”), Margaret Trudeau as well as … Mickey Mouse!
I suggest, think about Virgo (August 23– September 22), your brave writer’s indicator. Virgos are widely thought about to be really buttoned-down, detail-oriented as well as systematic. The age of Virgo in the astrologists’ Great Year took location circa 13000-10750 BCE. One point some specialists state regarding the Virgo is that while they show up withdrawn as well as awesome on the outdoors, they might be concealing feeling that is virtually as well extreme.
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I’m investing in $100 empty boxes – In this video I talk about how I am trying to buy up mint condition empty boxes. Over time so many boxes for expensive products get thrown out and several of them can be worth thousands of dollars. The older they get, the more expensive and sought after they become. I am adding many of these boxes to my portfolio of collectibles. Hope you guys enjoy the video!
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The driver in a crash last year in Beaverton that killed two of his Southridge High School friends, critically injured two others in the car and sent a sheriff’s deputy to the hospital apologized Friday as he was sentenced to 25 years in prison.
“We lost two kings, two real friends, people I shared my dreams with,” Xavier Denzel Rodriguez said through tears in Washington County Circuit Court.
Rodriguez pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree manslaughter, two counts of second-degree assault and one count of driving under the influence.
Rodriguez, now 19, ran a red light and struck the patrol SUV of Washington County sheriff’s Deputy Mike Trotter at 99 mph on April 27, 2022, at Southwest Tualatin Valley Highway and Murray Boulevard.
The teen had a .18 blood alcohol level and was drinking a Four Loko, an alcoholic beverage, while driving, according to a statement from the Washington County District Attorney’s Office.
The impact caused seat belts to snap in Rodriguez’s Nissan Altima and sent the patrol car spinning with Trotter behind the wheel.
Matthew Amaya, 17, and Juan Pacheco Aguilera, 16, were killed. They were among four passengers in Rodriguez’s car.
Alma Navarro, Amaya’s mother, said Rodriguez was “a teenager who made a mistake.”
“I hold nothing against him, he was my son’s friend,” she said in court.
Pablo Pacheco, Aguilera’s father, said he hoped Rodriguez could reflect and ask God for forgiveness while he’s in prison.
“Our son is gone and this is due to the irresponsibility of people who sometimes think nothing of drinking and driving,” Pacheco said. “We can’t change the situation and that’s why there’s the law. When someone makes a mistake there are consequences.”
James Thompson and Sky Korbut, both 15, the other passengers in Rodriguez’s car, sustained severe injuries. Thompson suffered internal organ damage and broken ribs and Korbut underwent several surgeries for intestinal and spinal injuries.
In a statement after the sentencing, Trotter said Rodriguez’s sentence was “reasonable for the damage he caused.”
“A lot of people ask if me and my family forgive him,” Trotter said in an interview. “I don’t think that’s for me and my family to decide. That’s between him and God. His apology was great, but his decision led to the loss of lives.”
Trotter suffered damage to his sciatic nerve and has “lost a lot of function” in his left leg, he said. He’s on leave for rehabilitation.
Rodriguez apologized to each family member of the students who died and to Trotter. He called the fellow students in the car his only friends.
“Everyday I can’t look at myself anymore, there’s no need,” he said. ” I don’t know why God saved me. If I had a choice I would give my life for them.”
Police arrested Rodriguez a month after the crash when he was released from the hospital. He underwent several surgeries for his injuries and had trouble standing in the courtroom.
He was indicted on 12 charges, including manslaughter, but most were dropped as part of his plea agreement.
Judge Brandon Thompson told Rodriguez to put the rest of his life to “good use.”
“You made a comment that you don’t know why you were spared. I don’t know how you survived frankly,” Thompson said. “All I can say is when you’re released, you need to figure it out.”
— Lisa Moreno; [email protected]
Autumn is here, and with it, an astrological doozy of a month. May will be intense for all zodiac signs, especially when it comes to affairs of the heart. Notably, Venus, the planet that rules over your love life, is shifting into the sensitive water sign Cancer on the 7th. This cosmic change brings out a strong desire to feel safe and loved, says Donna Page, a professional astrologer with a graduate degree in counselling psychology. “Venus wants us to be happy,” Page says, so you may find yourself asking questions like: “What causes me joy? Who makes me feel seen and safe? When am I happiest?”
The emotional energy is only heightened with the full moon in Scorpio (another emo water sign) and a lunar eclipse on the 5th. And to top it all off, Pluto, the planet that deals with death, rebirth, and transformation, goes retrograde this month as well, dialling up the intensity across the board. This is a time of big revelations and discovering what (or who) you are truly passionate about. Nbd, right?
Ahead, Page shares her May 2023 sex horoscope predictions for every zodiac sign:

Single: In the words of the Spice Girls, “Tell me what you want, what you really really want!” For single Aries, this month is bringing up a lot of questions around your romantic life. Is it time for you to start seriously dating? Do you “Wannabe” someone’s lover? If so, it’s important to truly share how you’re feeling with anyone you’re interested in. After all, they won’t know you’re crushing if you don’t say anything! So muster up that confidence, and go after what you want.
In a relationship: Finding yourself a bit more amorous than usual, Aries? The full moon eclipse in Scorpio on the 5th is lighting up your house of intimacy, so don’t be surprised if you find yourself craving closeness and passion. While this can certainly manifest into some extra fire in the bedroom, this eclipse asks you to go deeper than the physical, and really work on the emotional intimacy in your partnership. There may be a bit of a push and pull, because sharing your deepest desires is, well, scary! But your relationship—and yourself—will be better for it.
Between your birthday and the full moon eclipse energy, this is a big month for you, Taurus!

Single: Venus, the planet that rules your love life, is in Cancer at the start of May, bringing to light your habits. There is a strong sense that your daily rituals will lead you to a person of interest. Whether you post up at that bar you always get your end-of-the-week cocktail with the gals or your neighbourhood coffee shop where you treat yourself every Wednesday, stay open to new connections of the cutie kind. Thank you, universe!
In a relationship: With the full moon eclipse in Scorpio on the 5th, you can expect a spotlight to shine on your love life. Not a bad thing, BTW! Taurus and Scorpio are astrological opposites, which makes for a smoother yin and yang energy. Plus, with Scorpio (notoriously a sexual sign) in the mix, why not make your bed rock? This month is a good time to connect with your significant other, whether it’s through a fun and sexy game or just a long, unrushed conversation on your nightly walk. Venus, the planet that rules over love, is in sweet water sign Cancer starting on the 7th, which will also help you communicate more clearly. This is good news because Mercury retrograde will be ending around that time as well. Phew!

Single: You’re feeling a bit more analytical than usual this month, Single Gem, and there is nothing wrong with that! When looking for the person you plan to spend a big portion of your time with, it’s important to be discerning. Just make sure you are not adding additional stress to the situation, because the full moon and lunar eclipse on the 5th come at a pivotal time—when the balance between your life and love life are being called into question. Take stock of how you’re feeling and, importantly, who you are looking for in a romantic sense (if anyone!). This information will be incredibly useful in the months ahead, trust.
In a relationship: Get out of dodge this month, and enjoy some much-needed TLC with your lover. Any relationship is stronger with intentional one on one time, and yours is no exception, Gemini. Your birthday is coming up (woohoo!), which is a natural time for you to reflect on all that has happened since your last turn around the sun. When the full moon solar eclipse hits on the 5th, the passionate, sensual energy will be at an all-time high. So definitely put some sexy time with bae on the cal!

Single: If you’re looking to find ~the one~, now is the perfect time, Cancer. The full moon is in fellow water sign Scorpio, and with Pluto highlighting big transformations across the zodiac, the stars are aligned for big love! As if that wasn’t enough, Venus, the literal planet of love, moves into your sign on the 7th, bringing the romance up to Fabio levels. The only thing you need to do is put yourself out there and let the universe work its magic.
In a relationship: The full moon in Scorpio on the 5th is giving you Big Romantic Comedy Protagonist Energy, and who doesn’t want some of that? It also highlights your house of romance, love, and overall enjoyment of life. This is a great time to connect with your significant other in a fun way that still allows for intimacy. Whether you two prefer long strolls on the beach or just some nice pillow talk at the end of the day, the conversation and feelings will be flowing. Venus, the planet that rules over love, also moves into your sign on the 7th, making this sweet energy even stronger. Enjoy!

Single: You may be feeling a little low in the relationship department this month, single Leo, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Relationships, like the rest of life, have ebbs and flows. On the 7th, Venus, the planet that rules over love, moves into Cancer, so you may feel more contemplative than usual. Take a beat to think about what you really want in a partner—and what kind of energy you’re putting out there. Are you telling people you’re into something casual when you’re actually looking for a stop-you-in-your-tracks, lightning-bolt-to-the-heart love story? If so, try being more honest! There is someone out there looking for you, too.
In a relationship: The full moon and eclipse on the 5th have you deep in your feelings, Leo. Quite literally, actually, because it’s highlighting a part of your chart that represents the subconscious and all those things kicking around in your brain that you really don’t want to talk about. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but it’s time to bring it up! If you’re feeling insecure in your relationship or need a little more affirmation on the regular, let your partner know. Sitting and wallowing in your truth isn’t going to help anyone in this situation.

Single: Virgo, you are notoriously picky, and naturally, that energy extends to your love life, too. There’s no problem with that, as long as you are being realistic. (PSA: Someone wearing mismatched socks is not an actual red flag). If you are seeking a relationship, it’s important to keep your mind open without sacrificing your standards. You know what you want, and you can go after it! Just don’t self-sabotage by fixating on one or two tiny things that may be off—instead, focus on the overall feeling a potential suitor gives you.
In a relationship: Your month begins with the full moon in Scorpio highlighting the part of your chart that deals with communication. So basically, you and bae will be having some big chats—be willing to be vulnerable, Virgo, even when it’s hard. Letting your partner know what’s on your mind is pretty much a surefire way to get closer. So rip the band-aid off, maybe pour yourself a glass of wine, and get talking!

Single: Single Libra, you know what you want in your love life. So what’s stopping you from really going after it? Keep your green flags top of mind as you wade into the dating pool. And with Pluto, a planet that deals with passion and desire, popping into a part of your chart that deals with ~romance~, this has the potential to be a pretty steamy month for you. All you have to do is get out there. So, grab your cutest ‘fit and hit the town, baby!
In a relationship: On the 5th, the full moon eclipse in Scorpio is bringing the give and take in your relationship into focus. Take an honest look at your current partnership(s), Libra. Are you showering your bae with praise and lavish gifts, only to be met with coach potato energy? If so, it may be time to speak up. You don’t need to carry it all on your back, and your partner should realize that, too. Plus, with Pluto going retrograde this month, there is an air of intensity and sexual magnetism. Perhaps some steamy sex awaits on the other side of whatever convos you need to have!

Single: If you’re looking for love this month, you’re in luck, single Scorpio! On the 7th, Venus, the planet that rules over love, shifts into fellow water sign Cancer, allowing you to show your softer side. And with the feeling of transformation top of mind (thank you, Pluto), it’s possible you may meet someone while exploring a new hobby—be it ceramics or kickboxing. Keep your eyes, mind, and heart open as you move through life for the next month. You may be pleasantly surprised by who comes into your orbit.
In a relationship: Scorp, I’m sorry to report, but this is the time to expect the unexpected, especially in relationships. Before you click away or bury this thought deep in the back of your mind (the Scorpio in me acknowledges and honours the Scorpio in you), unexpected does not necessarily mean bad. Life is about to change for either you, your partner, or perhaps the two of you. This could manifest in a job switch, a new passion, or just seeing your bae in their newly evolved form. Either way, embrace these changes. Growth is good as long as you continue to communicate your needs and desires along the way!

Single: Dating hasn’t been the easiest lately, so cue the frustration. But before you throw in the towel and join the nunnery, try loosening your grip on finding the “perfect” person. Dating can be a fun exercise that exposes you to all different types of people and information. Don’t get so hung up on the destination that you forget to enjoy the journey, like catching up with a cutie over drinks. Sooner or later, your person is coming!
In a relationship: Sag, sometimes you just need to get away from it all and truly reset. Thanks to the full moon lunar eclipse in Scorpio on the 5th, this month is all about that for you and bae. Set your OOO, book that vacation rental home you’ve been eyeing, and just kick it with your S.O. Your connection is in need of a little TLC, so get away from it all, and spend some time doing some, ahem, sexual healing and connecting. You and boo will feel better than ever!

Single: With Venus, the planet that rules your love life, moving opposite your sign into emotional Cancer on the 7th, suffice it to say—love is in the air! If you’re wanting a relationship, you’ll find even more opportunities to meet a potential partner than usual this month. Get out there, and see who might interest you. There’s no harm in casting a wide net and meeting a bunch of new people, especially while you have that good Venus glow!
In a relationship: Your social calendar is maxed out this month, Cap, which can be a great thing. Just don’t forget to make time for your lover…or maybe bring them along for the ride. Venus, the planet that rules over love, moves into your astrological opposite, Cancer, on the 7th, which brings a romantic, sweet energy to your life. Carve out some time for a little date night, romantic getaway, or whatever makes you and bae happiest together!

Single: The relationship work for you this month is more of an inside job, single Aquarius, which can be a very powerful thing. The new moon in Taurus on the 19th is emphasizing your need for a fresh start, especially in the romantic realm. To prepare for that, make a list of the qualities you want in a partner. Everyone talks a lot about red flags, but what are your green flags? What are the indications that this person is a good match? Write a list, and even put it on your bathroom mirror or in a notes app on your phone as a reminder. You deserve everything you want and more—now’s the time to get it!
In a relationship: Venus, the planet that rules over love, is in your sign for the first week of the month, so if you’re feeling a little extra romantic, that could definitely be why! Take advantage of this sweet energy by making time for fun with your S.O.—go to the birthday parties you’d usually skip in favour of a night of Netflix, book a table at that restaurant you’ve both been eyeing, or go for a couple’s massage. The romantic energy won’t last forever, so best hop on it now!

Single: There is a LOT of water sign energy in the air right now, which is great for you, single Pisces. The full moon is in Scorpio. And then two days later, on the 7th, Venus, the planet that rules over love, moves into Cancer. This is all to say… you will be having a lot of feelings this month! Try to stay grounded and focused on what your dating goals are—whether it’s a LTR or a summer fling. Once you have clarity, the rest will fall into place.
In a relationship: This is a big month for you in the love department, Pisces, so get ready! Venus moves into fellow water sign Cancer on the 7th, which is just premium energy for a big romantic date or getaway. That, combined with the full moon lunar eclipse in water sign Scorpio on the 5th, has you very tapped into your feelings and able to see your relationship clearer than ever. The only question is…do you like what you see? If the answer is no, maybe some reevaluation is in order.
The post Your May 2023 Sex Horoscope Is Here, And It’s Time To Take Action In Your Love Life appeared first on Women’s Health.

May 2, 2023
By Brian Hews
In a nearly unanimous vote, with two assembly people walking, the California Assembly voted 78-0 to take legal revenue away from community newspapers and place them on obscure unadjudicated websites.
The COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 dealt economic blows to many industries, the newspaper industry being one of them. It was already hard enough after internet giants like Google took advertising while taking news for free, now a bill being supported by a California local politician wants to further harm newspapers and possibly create even more “news deserts.”
AB 542, by newly elected Assemblymember Juan Carrillo (D-39), pertains to self-service storage facilities, their lien property sales and how they are announced.
The bill passed through the Asm. Judiciary Committee 11-0; on that committee – casting a yes vote to hurt community newspapers – is another Assembly newbie and former Downey Mayor Assemblywoman Blanca Pacheco.
As it stands now, storage facilities are required to advertise lien property sales twice in a local newspaper of “general circulation” — once a week, for two consecutive weeks.
A newspaper of general circulation, as defined by Gov’t Code 6008, is a paper that has been adjudicated in court certifying the paper is circulated in a certain city.
The owner(s) of the newspaper are required to publish the newspaper and have an office in the city for three years before contemplating applying as a newspaper of general circulation in court.
A judge looks at the documents and renders a decision; if approved, the paper is “adjudicated as a newspaper of general circulation.”
Carillo’s bill allows a storage facility owner to bypass adjudicated print publications and post on any publicly accessible non-adjudicated Internet website that customarily conducts or advertises online auctions or sales, violating Gov’t Code 6008.
This would result in substantial lost revenue for newspapers, it is also grossly unfair to those newspapers who have attained the title general circulation.
The California News Publishers Association-made up of 66 daily, 310 weekly, 19 monthly and 30 campus newspapers-opposes the bill. Brenda Contreras, legislative director from Carrillo’s Sacramento office, said in an email to a Valley Press reporter that they have a meeting with the CNPA scheduled soon.
The CNPA sent a letter dated March 6 to Assemblyman Brian Maienschein, chair of the Assembly Judiciary Committee and other members of the committee, to express their strong opposition to the bill “because it would deny those without Internet access to notices that are legally required to inform the public of various issues.”
“Public notice newspaper advertising is an extension of journalism that protects the authenticity of and access to public information,” the letter said. “Please do not disrupt this vital aspect of service to the people.”
The letter cited several key flaws in the proposed legislation, including eliminating necessary transparency that prevents conflicts of interest.
“AB 542 contemplates reliance on [unadjudicated] niche websites as a resort for public information,” the letter said.
“Information consumption in the state contradicts this belief. More than 10 million Californians rely on home-delivered [adjudicated] print newspapers or their e-editions for news. The weekly circulation, unique web visitor counts and social media following of newspapers is a million-fold of websites that conducts or advertises online auctions or sales.
“We don’t understand why Carrillo would want to interfere with how news is delivered to Californians. We also don’t know if he realizes the great financial impact that his bill will have on all newspapers in the state.”
Members of the CNPA and editors and publishers of newspapers across the state will reach out to Carrillo in the coming weeks asking him to pull the bill.
Attorney Scott Talkov of Talkov Law, an expert on newspaper adjudication having successfully obtained adjudication for several local California newspapers while also defending adjudicated newspapers from unscrupulous attacks, told Los Cerritos Community News, “Another chance for certain industries to hide their actions from the public to the detriment of those whose rights are at issue.”
If readers want to reach out to Carrillo and ask him to pull the bill, he can be reached at or [email protected] or [email protected] or [email protected]
The bill now moves to the Senate where it is unknown what will happen.
People strolling in Palermo, the park section of Buenos Aires, in the evening light, circa 1940. (Photo by Sigwart Blum / FPG / Hulton Archive / Getty Images)
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Holocaust literature at its core is inevitably Eurocentric, yet when seen globally, its geographic scope is stunning. In Latin America, for instance, a vigorous fount of memoirs, fiction, poetry, and drama has emerged over the last half-century examining the experiences and reverberations of the Shoah. For example, the Argentine journalist Jacobo Timerman’s celebrated autobiography, Prisoner Without a Name, Cell Without a Number, describes scenes of torture in which military officers proudly tell Timerman that the persecution of Jewish dissidents in Argentina during the Dirty War should be seen as an extension of the “final solution” to the Southern Hemisphere. An array of novelists and poets have explored the lives of Holocaust survivors and their descendants in Chile, Cuba, and Venezuela after the liberation of Auschwitz and other extermination camps. José Emilio Pacheco’s novel Morirás lejos, which remains untranslated into English, tells of a survivor who spots a former Nazi in his Mexican neighborhood. Jorge Volpi’s best-selling In Search of Klingsor is about Allied scientists racing against Hitler to make the first atomic bomb, while Roberto Bolaño’s Nazi Literature in the Americas offers a Borgesian encyclopedia of invented fascist writers.
While none of these have the wherewithal to change the overall narrative representation of the Holocaust, such non-European works offer a bracingly “decentralized” view of how its horrors and traumas spread out from Europe into the rest of the world. The Shoah cannot be viewed from one place or set of places: Its barbarities recognize no borders, and this is true of Latin America as well as many other parts of the globe. Even Jorge Luis Borges, the region’s leading literary dean, dedicated some of his fiction to exploring it: In his story “Deutsches Requiem,” he examines a Nazi renegade who, recognizing Germany’s defeat toward the end of the Second World War, obsesses about a Jewish prisoner, while in “The Secret Miracle,” he tells of a writer and translator who asks God’s permission to complete his magnum opus—a verse drama—as he is about to face a Nazi firing squad. These and other tales explore the implications of the Holocaust in a world where evil is anything but banal and lacks a uniquely national character.
Santiago Amigorena’s novel The Ghetto Within—his first to be translated into English—is one more addition to this sizable Latin American canon; it is also a conscious attempt at reevaluating it “from the edges,” as Borges liked to put it. A well-known French filmmaker whose Yiddish-speaking ancestors immigrated to Argentina in the 1930s, Amigorena went into exile during the Dirty War and in time became a prolific movie director, producer, and screenwriter (his two dozen scripts include Juan Diego Solanas’s Upside Down and Jonathan Nossiter’s Last Words). Yet what Amigorena considers most essential in his oeuvre are his works of fiction. He is the author of a dozen books that constitute a unified project about the echoes of the Shoah in France and Argentina, which is designed, he tells us, to “oppose the silence that has stifled me since birth.” In a brief preface, Amigorena states that The Ghetto Within is “the source” of that project: his effort to consider the dark shadow that the Holocaust has cast not only on Europe but on Latin America. By zooming in on Polish Jewish refugees who seek to assimilate in Buenos Aires—“the Paris of the Southern Cone”—by distancing themselves from the atrocities unfolding far away in Europe, he also hopes to rethink the Shoah canon, studying how the genocide reverberates to the farthest corners of the globe.
The Ghetto Within tells the story of Vicente Rosenberg, an assimilated Polish Jew who immigrates to Buenos Aires, where he grows even more disengaged from his Jewish heritage. A Yiddish speaker, Vicente studied law at the University of Warsaw, although his true passion is German poetry, especially Goethe, Schiller, Hölderlin, Novalis, and Heine. Disoriented at first in his new country, he eventually finds support in the friendship of two other Polish Jews, Ariel Edelsohn and Sammy Grunfeld, and falls in love with Rosita, also Jewish, whose parents arrived in Argentina a couple of decades earlier. After a while, Vicente and Rosita marry and have three children: Martha, Ercilia, and Juan José (aka “Juanjo”). But Vicente is unhappy, without a goal. As a way to make his son-in-law less volatile and more financially stable, Rosita’s father brings him into his furniture business. By the late 1940s, the family has moved comfortably into Argentina’s middle class, where, as it happens, some 240,000 Jews live today, the second-largest concentration in the Americas after the United States.
In typical porteño style, Vicente spends an exorbitant number of hours talking with Ariel and Sammy at the Café Tortoni, a famous European-style coffeehouse where, Amigorena writes, in September of 1940, “one was as likely to encounter Jorge Luis Borges and the glories of tango as European refugees such as José Ortega y Gasset, Roger Caillois, or Arthur Rubinstein.” In these encounters, which make up a generous portion of the novel, Vicente discusses the events connected with the war unfolding in Europe at the time. A parallel plot thus develops, as Vicente’s mother, Gustawa Goldwag, and his older sibling are rounded up in Warsaw by the Nazis and isolated in the ghetto on the banks of the Vistula River, where the living conditions rapidly deteriorate. An assiduous letter writer, Gustawa has asked her son, before his departure to Argentina, to promise that he will write to her once a week. But as a busy entrepreneur with a budding family, Vicente comes up with all sorts of subterfuges to avoid keeping his promise. His mother’s letters are quoted in full in the novel, followed by long paragraphs describing Vicente’s remorse at having fallen into a silence that, as in the case of the book’s author, asphyxiates him.
In his furniture store, Vicente hires a salesman who is a communist immigrant from Germany. The salesman comes to see Vicente as a father figure, and their relationship allows Amigorena to test Vicente’s views on Germany on a more human level. Although he intensely hates Hitler, Vicente loves German culture, and through his relationship with the salesman, Vicente wrestles with this love. Thanks to an unexpected visitor from his Polish past, as well as through newspapers like La Nación, the Argentine Jewish community’s Zionist organ La Idea Sionista, and London’s Daily Telegraph, which always arrives in Buenos Aires several weeks late, Vicente finds out about the genocide in the Łódź ghetto and the degree to which starvation has decimated the people in the Warsaw ghetto, including members of his own family. Guilt-ridden, he becomes more and more taciturn, even ghost-like, until he ceases to communicate with his wife, children, and friends altogether. Words are no longer suitable to convey Vicente’s immense agony. But suddenly, as if in a desperate search for hope, Rosita gets pregnant again.
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The reader never learns the details of Vicente’s mother’s death, other than that, after the uprising in April 1943, the Nazis flattened the Warsaw ghetto. There are extended portions of The Ghetto Within that provide historical details about the Nazis’ plan to build extermination camps in the East, which are inserted as if they were taken, unprocessed, from Wikipedia. There are also rambling sections about the Wannsee Conference, where “the final solution to the Jewish question” was formulated in discussions between Hermann Göring and Adolf Eichmann, among others. And there are long-winded passages on semantics, as in the debate around the word chosen to describe the Nazis’ attempted extermination of the Jews, going back and forth between “holocaust,” “genocide,” “cataclysm,” “hecatomb,” “apocalypse,” and the Hebrew shoah and khurban.
Amigorena is intent on fitting the plight of his characters into the historical context, but he is no Tolstoy, Mary Renault, García Márquez, or Hilary Mantel. Along the way, he misses juicy opportunities. For instance, Vicente, before moving to Warsaw, is raised in a shtetl called Chelm. I’m not sure Amigorena is aware of the enormous role that a mythical “Chelm” plays in Yiddish folklore, known to be where Jewish fools inhabit. It might be just an aside to him, yet it signals the degree to which he has only half-digested the culture he is depicting. Mostly, though, The Ghetto Within appears to be an attempt—and no doubt a worthy one—to bring to the fore questions of anti-Semitism and identity in France today (where Amigorena lives), as the conditions of Jewish life become increasingly fragile. This is a typical passage:
One of the most pernicious things about anti-Semitism is the refusal to allow certain men and certain women to ever cease to think of themselves as Jews, to confine them to this identity against their will—to decide, definitively, that this is what they are. Vicente did not feel as if he had been gifted something, that he had had his mind opened, that he had been enlightened as to what he was or who he was. He did not think: at least now I know that I am a Jew. Vicente, like many Jews, was merely beginning to understand that, in order to exist, anti-Semitism needs Semites; he was beginning to realize that, if an anti-Semite defined himself as such, he can no longer tolerate that a Semite not define himself, since he is one.
This disquisition is obviously in debt to Jean-Paul Sartre’s book Réflexions sur la question juive (known in English as Anti-Semite and Jew), in which Sartre argues that anti-Semites need Jews to exist, but that Jews need anti-Semites just as much, to remind them of who they are. Whether this is true is another matter: To view anti-Semitism as a call-and-response phenomenon risks the possibility of making antagonism the rule of all identities. Jews, in countless historical periods, have existed outside an ecosystem that rewards hatred.
Unfortunately, these philosophical questions do not appear in The Ghetto Within, and one wishes the book offered a more probing examination of the varieties of anti-Semitism that proliferated in Argentina at the time. In the mid-’40s, Germanophilia swept the intellectual circles of Buenos Aires; Borges reflects on it in one of his essays. Likewise, one wishes that the varieties of Jewish life in Latin America were also captured beyond the setting of this reductive form of anti-Semitism. Buenos Aires in 1943 suffered a coup d’état: One of the military figures behind it was the fascist-leaning Pedro Pablo Ramírez Menchaca. There was a considerable German community in Argentina with roots reaching back to the 19th century, and a portion of it embraced the surging fascist movement in Buenos Aires and elsewhere. The dissemination of pamphlets like The Protocols of the Elders of Zion was extensive. Meanwhile, Jewish activists and writers like Alberto Gerchunoff, Carlos Grūnberg, and Lázaro Liacho gave voice to the anxiety that Argentina’s Jews were undergoing. Amigorena makes little to no mention of these local events. It is as if his plot unfolded in a vacuum.
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In the end, things are conveniently wrapped up in The Ghetto Within when, in a 180-degree narrative turn offered in the last chapter, we are told that Vicente and Rosita’s middle child, Ercilia, is Amigorena’s mother, and thus the story we’ve been following is that of the author’s grandparents. Amigorena quotes Theodor Adorno, who argued that “to write poetry after the Holocaust was barbaric”—only to reconsider and return to writing:
Does the Shoah have a definitive quality? I find it difficult to say that anything has a “definitive” quality. Like Pythagoras, like Borges, I prefer to think that things cyclically return. Anti-Semitism forced my forebears to leave Europe. Latin American dictatorships forced me to flee Argentina and later Uruguay with my parents—to return to Europe. I was forced to leave my country, my mother tongue, my friends. Like my grandfather, I was a traitor: I was not where I should have been.
Intriguingly, Amigorena mentions that his cousin Martín Caparrós, a prominent Argentine journalist who has written an incisive book on world hunger—and who is also the oldest son of Vicente and Rosita’s first child, Martha (he is known in the family as “Mopi”)—has also surveyed Gustawa Goldwag’s odyssey. In a personal essay called “Los Abuelos,” Caparrós states that for years he considered the Holocaust “only from afar,” through studies and accounts, films and photographs. But then he realized that his great-grandmother died in the Warsaw ghetto, and things changed in that instant: This is “the story of my blood,” he confesses.
As a result of their diasporic wanderings, Caparrós and Amigorena have arrived in the same place through forking paths. One writes in Spanish, from Argentina, the other in French, from France, but the Holocaust is a personal obsession for both. Having digested it through Anne Frank’s Diary of a Young Girl, Primo Levi’s Survival in Auschwitz, and Hannah Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem, they have made it central to their lives, although they delve into it obliquely, from a slanted geographical perspective. In doing so, they reinvent a past that is long gone, and a past that is now theirs only peripherally.