El Servicio Meteorológico Nacional (NWS) de Estados Unidos extendió hoy lunes las alertas por calor excesivo desde la región central de las Planicies al Valle del Misisipi y la Costa del Golfo, con temperaturas por encima de los 38 grados Celsius (100 Fahrenheit).
Por su parte el canal televisivo especializado en información meteorológica Weather Channel pronosticó temperaturas por encima de esa marca desde Las Vegas (Nevada) a Phoenix (Arizona), Dallas, San Antonio y Houston (Texas), Oklahoma City (Oklahoma) y Nueva Orleáns (Luisiana).
«Tendremos una semana extremadamente calurosa con la posibilidad de numerosos récords», dijo Domenica Davis, meteoróloga del canal.
Phoenix ha cumplido ya 31 días consecutivos con temperatura por encima de los 43,3 grados Celsius (110 Fahrenheit), superando el récord anterior de 18 días marcado en junio de 1974.
Pero los meteorólogos indican que la ciudad podría tener un alivio en la noche del lunes y durante el martes, cuando se esperan lluvias que podrían refrescar Phoenix a los 40 grados Celsius C (104 F).
En Las Vegas los padecimientos no se limitan al calor y tienen el añadido del humo de incendios forestales en la Reserva Nacional Mojave, que han cruzado la línea estatal de California a Nevada unos 60 kilómetros al suroeste de la ciudad de los casinos.
El Cuerpo de Bomberos del Condado de Clark (Nevada) ha establecido un puesto móvil de comando cerca de la frontera estatal preparándose para contener el fuego que, al anochecer del domingo, ya había calcinado casi 10.000 hectáreas de bosques.
La dirección del Zoológico de San Antonio, en el sur de Texas, anunció en un boletín que debido al calor extenderá hasta el 13 de agosto su programa que ofrece bebidas refrescantes gratuitas para los visitantes.
«Quienes buscan una aventura refrescante pueden embarcarse en nuestro ‘Paseo del Cóctel Continental’, que ofrece cócteles inspirados por sabores deliciosos de todo el mundo desde Asia a América del Sur, África, Australia y América del Norte», indicó el parque.
Photo: Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro speaks at the state Capitol in Harrisburg, Pa., Jan. 17, 2023. Pennsylvania will direct up to $400 million in federal money to reimburse organizations that train new infrastructure workers on the job, through an executive order signed by Gov. Shapiro on Monday, July 31, 2023. Photo file: AP/Matt Rourke.
HARRISBURG, Pa. — Pennsylvania will direct up to $400 million in federal money over the next five years to reimburse organizations that train new infrastructure workers on the job, under an executive order signed Monday by Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro.
A portion of the $19 billion that the state will receive from two federal programs for infrastructure projects will, under the governor’s order, fund the new training program.
Organizations doing infrastructure work — such as repairing roads and bridges, replacing lead pipes and expanding high speed internet — could receive up to $40,000 for each new worker they train. A maximum of $400,000 could be reimbursed through the program, which will be managed by the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry.
The grants are meant to reimburse the cost of workers’ salaries and other training costs. Additionally, the money can be used to help employees with housing, child and dependent care, tools, uniforms, educational testing and transportation. The Shapiro administration aims to create 10,000 new jobs.
Shapiro said that reopening a collapsed section of Interstate 95 in Philadelphia in less than two weeks showed “what’s possible when our highly skilled workers get to work and when we have their backs.”
“We need the workforce to be able to do it,” the governor said at a press conference in Pittsburgh. “So one of the biggest hurdles we face is having enough workers trained and ready for these kinds of projects at a time when we now have more money than ever before for this type of investment.”
An historical marker at the Pennsylvania Capitol in Harrisburg, Pa., is seen on Feb. 21, 2023. Some of Pennsylvania’s school districts may have to empty their reserves or take out loans to ensure they can open their doors for the fall semester, with billions of dollars in state aid held up in a month-old partisan budget stalemate. (Photo: AP/Matt Rourke/File)
HARRISBURG, Pa. — Some of Pennsylvania’s school districts may have to empty their reserves or take out loans to open for the fall semester because billions of dollars in state aid is held up in a month-old political stalemate.
State payments to school districts normally start going out by the end of July, but the standoff between Gov. Josh Shapiro and a politically divided Legislature appears sure to stretch well into August, and perhaps beyond.
A dispute over education funding has contributed to holding up the proposed $45 billion state budget. One stumbling block is a whether to create a $100 million program subsidizing students in the lowest performing districts so they can attend private or religious schools.
In Steelton-Highspire School District, officials are discussing whether to take out a loan to ensure the district can open when school begins on Aug. 24, Superintendent Mick Iskric said.
The district has been working with a deficit for 14 years, Iskric said, and there’s no funding to bridge the gap when the state starts missing payments to the roughly 1,400-student district just outside Harrisburg.
“Our payments that come in go right out the door,” he said. “We’re impacted immediately.”
Any loan, however, will likely come with high interest rates and fees that would further compound the district’s deficit, Iskric said.
Lawmakers are not scheduled to return to the Capitol until mid-September, but Senate leadership has said they may return earlier if negotiations wrap up.
Senate President Pro Tempore Kim Ward, R-Westmoreland, said in a statement that the chamber understands it is important to finalize the budget ahead of the school year.
Counties are also anticipating stalled payments and hundreds of millions of dollars that normally go to Pennsylvania’s state-related universities are also being held up, potentially meaning higher tuition.
Education funding became one of the thorniest parts of the budget process after a landmark court ruling said the way Pennsylvania pays for public schools violates the rights of students in the state’s poorest districts.
The proposal to subsidize private or religious school tuition for students in the lowest performing districts advanced in the Republican-controlled Senate, which found an ally in Shapiro. But Democrats who control the House opposed it,after pushing unsuccessfully for more public school funding for Pennsylvania’s 500 school districts.
The state will miss its first payment to schools, about $190 million earmarked for special education, at the end of July. A delay past mid-August means districts will miss the first portion of their basic education funding, $1.1 billion, which typically is delivered at the end of that month.
About $40 million in federal funding — which supports the state’s poorest districts, after-school programs, migrant education and more — typically starts flowing this month. Those dollars are also snarled in the budget impasse.
Districts that have to take out loans to bridge a funding gap may be able to pay off the debt when the state starts making payments, but they will still be on the hook for interest and fees, Iskric said. That happened in 2015, when a drawn-out budget feud left districts scrambling to cover costs.
The previous stalemate showed why it is important for districts to maintain enough money to plug holes when state funding stalls, said Susquehanna Community School District Superintendent Bronson Stone.
Stone’s is among Pennsylvania’s poorer districts and gets a majority of its funding from the state. It has built enough of a reserve in recent years to get through October, he said.
“If it lasts beyond October, then we’d have to reconfigure finances and look for possibly some support, whether through borrowing or things along those lines,” he said. “I’d hope it wouldn’t last that long.”
Hazleton Area School District can make it just about two months given its $6 million biweekly payroll, said Superintendent Brian Uplinger.
The impasse could have a nearly immediate impact on pre-K programs and daycare, plus an early intervention program for all Luzerne County families who have children with special needs.
The district would begin considering borrowing in November, Uplinger said. Before that, programs like athletics and extracurriculars could see cuts to make ends meet.
“Everything we do is for our students. We want to make sure they’re getting the best and most they can while they’re with us,” he said. “If we’re not getting funded appropriately, or at all, our programming suffers and then they suffer.”
Foto de archivo del presidente de República Dominicana, Luis Abinader. EFE/ Mauricio Dueñas Castañeda
El presidente dominicano, Luis Abinader, destacó este sábado la decisión de Kenia de liderar una Fuerza Multinacional en Haití, país sumido en una crisis en todos los órdenes, agravada por la violencia de las bandas armadas.
A través de Twitter, Abinader recordó que el 21 de septiembre del 2021, ante la Asamblea General de Naciones Unidas, pidió a la comunidad internacional ayuda para resolver la inseguridad en Haití.
«Nuestra perseverancia está dando frutos: ¡Kenia liderará, con el apoyo de Estados Unidos, una fuerza multinacional para Haití! Continuaremos abogando por más apoyo!», apuntó Abinader, cuyo país comparte con Haití la isla La Española.
El ministro de Asuntos Exteriores de Kenia, Alfred Mutua, anunció este sábado que su país acordó desplegar 1.000 policías en Haití para ayudar a restablecer la normalidad en el país.
«A petición del Grupo de Naciones Amigos de Haití, Kenia aceptó considerar positivamente la posibilidad de liderar una Fuerza Multinacional en Haití», dijo Mutua en un comunicado difundido en su cuenta oficial de Twitter.
Mutua señaló que «el despliegue propuesto por Kenia se concretará una vez que se obtenga un mandato del Consejo de Seguridad de la ONU y se emprendan otros procesos constitucionales kenianos».
El ministro también informó de que en las próximas semanas está prevista una misión de evaluación por parte de un equipo especial de la Policía keniana.
Haití vive una situación de extrema violencia y gran parte de Puerto Príncipe y sus alrededores se encuentran bajo el control de las bandas armadas, lo que ha obligado a miles de sus vecinos a irse de sus casas y convertirse en desplazados internos.
En Haití, sumido en una crisis en todos los órdenes, abundan las masacres, las violaciones, los secuestros y la quema de viviendas.
En el país más pobre de América, cerca del 50 % de la población sufre inseguridad alimentaria y la mitad de sus algo más de 11 millones de habitantes vive en la pobreza.
La escritora española Rosario Villajos, posa durante una entrevista con EFE, el 27 de julio de 2023 en Ciudad de México (México). EFE/Jose Mendez
La española Rosario Villajos, ganadora este año del premio Seix Barral por su novela «Educación Física», aseguró que la sociedad sería diferente si las personas fueran más amables con sus cuerpos.
«La cosas cambiarían si amáramos y respetáramos nuestros cuerpos; en la escuela no nos enseñan cómo estirarnos y los que van al gimnasio, machacan más que amar», señaló Villajos (Córdoba, 1978) en una entrevista con EFE.
La escritora está presentando en México «Educación Física», una obra que cuenta la historia de Catalina, una adolescente de 16 años con una relación complicada con su cuerpo, con rencor porque el mundo insiste en considerarla culpable por el hecho de ser mujer.
Tras una mala experiencia con un hombre misógino, la joven abandona la casa de su mejor amiga, en las afueras de la ciudad, y decide hacer autostop para regresar a casa.
«Pocas mujeres esperan un aventón (autostop), como dicen en México. Yo lo hice de joven y quise transmitir la sensación de no saber quién te va a tocar. Cuando tenía 20 años, si me inspiraba desconfianza quien paraba, no me subía, pero quería hacer una novela en la que la protagonista fuera más joven y no tuviera opción», cuenta Villajos.
RELOJ QUE MARCA LAS HORAS
Mientras pasa el tiempo en espera de que alguien la lleve a su casa, donde debe estar a las 10 de la noche para complacer a sus padres, Catalina reflexiona sobre su relación con chicos que la miran como un objeto, acerca de sus padres y de su vida.
«La misoginia la tienen hombres y mujeres. En mi libro la representa la madre de Catalina, que la tiene incorporada. Odia su propio cuerpo, tiene un problemas alimenticios sin diagnosticar, la anorexia, pero le está inculcando a su hija unos valores de mierda, algo que ha perpetrado el sistema y sigue perpetrando», asegura.
La joven está en la carretera desde poco después de las seis de la tarde. Tiene tiempo para llegar a casa. Mientras los autos pasan de largo, reflexiona sobre burlas recibidas en la escuela, donde es humillada por algunos varones: «Eres fea, pero al menos tienes tetas», «¿Eres nadadora? nada por delante, nada por detrás», son algunos comentarios de compañeros de clase.
«Ella quiere encajar. Ha conocido a esos chicos, ha pensado que ella encajaba porque uno de ellos le prestaba atención, pero en cuanto se da cuenta de que ese chico lo que quería era otra cosa, ya no deja que ninguno se acerque», explica la escritora.
Villajos coloca relojes cada ciertos momentos de la novela. Así el lector siente impaciencia al ver cómo pasa el tiempo y Catalina está sola en la carretera. ¿será abusada? ¿llegará a su casa? ¿la recibirán con amor o la cuestionarán?, son preguntas que puede hacerse quien acceda al libro.
«Lo de los relojes surgió porque como la novela tiene dos partes diferentes; pensé que para la primera necesitaba algo que causara la misma tensión que la segunda, en la que alguien recoge a Catalina y el lector empieza a suponer qué pasará», revela la autora.
IMÁGENES EN PROSA
Formada en bellas artes, la escritora traslada a su prosa su facilidad para la pintura. En su libro las imágenes son nítidas y cualquier lector con imaginación puede ver el cuerpo alto de Catalina o la apariencia hipócrita del padre de su amiga Silvia.
«Cuando pienso en cómo quiero comenzar una novela tiene que ser algo visual. En este caso me imaginé una chica en la carretera; mi novela anterior empezaba con una mancha en el colchón. Siempre quiero que sean imágenes potentes, que pueda recordar», explicó.
Villajos defiende el lugar de las mujeres lejos del rencor y la violencia y entiende que para un hombre no misógino el machismo también significa una daga en el cuello.
«Estaríamos mejor siendo todos feministas. La palabra feminismo asusta muchísimo porque como tiene ‘fem’ delante, la gente piensa que no hay igualdad. El feminismo promueve la igualdad y yo creo que con él, los hombres serían más felices, con menos presiones de todo tipo», asegura.
Reflexiona sobre la imposibilidad de que dos hombres heterosexuales se abracen o besen como pueden hacerlos dos mujeres, una consecuencia del machismo y los prejuicios.
«Hay profesores que promueven el ‘bromance’ (amistad estrecha entre hombres sin carácter sexual). Yo no he visto a dos hombres quererse como se quieren dos amigas y demostrárselo con afectos», cuenta y toca un tema que tal vez podría aprovechar para su próxima novela.
Melissa Lombana, 43, a high school teacher and mountain bike enthusiast, poses for a picture while working online, in her one-bedroom apartment in Miramar, Fla., Wednesday, July 26, 2023. Lombana's rent has increased each of the last two years and now amounts to nearly half her monthly income. "In a year, I will not be able to afford living here at all," she said. (Photo: AP/Rebecca Blackwell)
When viewed through a wide lens, renters across the U.S. finally appear to be getting some relief, thanks in part to the biggest apartment construction boom in decades.
Median rent rose just 0.5% in June, year over year, after falling in May for the first time since the pandemic hit the U.S. Some economists project U.S. rents will be down modestly this year after soaring nearly 25% over the past four years.
A closer look, however, shows the trend will likely be little comfort for many U.S. renters who’ve had to put an increasing share of their income toward their monthly payment. Renters in cities such as Cincinnati and Indianapolis are still getting hit with increases of 5% or more. Much of the new construction is located in just a few metro areas, and many of the new units are luxury apartments, which rent for well north of $2,000.
Median U.S. rent has risen to $2,029 this June from $1,629 in June 2019, according to rental listings company Rent, which tracks rents in 50 of the largest U.S. metropolitan areas. Demand for apartments exploded during the pandemic as people who could work remotely sought more space or decided to relocate to another part of the country.
Web designer Joey Di Girolamo, 50, poses for a picture inside his apartment, along with dog Khaleesi, Thursday, July 20, 2023, in Pembroke Pines., Fla. Di Girolamo, who has worked from home since the pandemic, had to downsize from a two-bedroom to one-bedroom apartment, due to rent increases. (Photo: AP/Rebecca Blackwell)
The steep rent increases have left tenants like Melissa Lombana, a high school teacher who lives in the South Florida city of Miramar, with progressively less income to spend on other needs.
The rent on her one-bedroom apartment jumped 13% last year to $1,700. It climbed another 6% to $1,800 this month when she renewed her lease.
“Even the $1,700 was a stretch for me,” said Lombana, 43, who supplements her teaching income with a side job doing educational testing. “In a year, I will not be able to afford living here at all.”
Lombana’s rent is now gobbling up nearly half her monthly income. That puts her in a category referred to as “cost-burdened” by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, denoting households that pay 30% or more of their income toward rent. Last year, the average rent-to-income ratio per household rose to 30%. This March, it was 29.6%.
Web designer Joey Di Girolamo, 50, poses for a picture outside his apartment building, Thursday, July 20, 2023, in Pembroke Pines., Fla. Di Girolamo, who has worked from home since the pandemic, had to downsize from a two-bedroom to one-bedroom apartment, due to rent increases. (Photo: AP/Rebecca Blackwell)
Lombana hasn’t had any luck finding a more affordable apartment. While South Florida is one of the metropolitan areas seeing a rise in apartment construction, the units are mostly high-end and not a viable option.
That scenario is playing out across the nation. Developers are rushing to complete projects that were green-lit during the pandemic-era surge in demand for rentals or left in limbo by delays in supplies of fixtures and building materials. Nearly 1.1 million apartments are currently under construction, according to the commercial real estate tracker CoStar, a pace not seen since the 1970s.
Increasing the supply of apartments tends to moderate rent increases over time and can give tenants more options on where to live. But more than 40% of the new rentals to be completed this year will be concentrated in about 10 high job growth metropolitan areas, including Austin, Nashville, Denver, Atlanta and New York, according to Marcus & Millichap. In many areas, the boost to overall inventory will be barely noticeable.
Even within metros where there’ll be a notable increase in available apartments, such as Nashville, most of it will be in the luxury category, where rents average $2,270, nationally. Some 70% of the new rental inventory will be the luxury class, said Jay Lybik, national director of multifamily analytics at CoStar.
That will leave most tenants unlikely to see a big enough reduction in rent to make a difference, industry experts and economists say.
“I think we’re in a period of rent flattening for 12 or 18 months, but it’s certainly not a big rent decline,” said Hessam Nadji, CEO of commercial real estate firm Marcus & Millichap.
Melissa Lombana, 43, a high school teacher and mountain bike enthusiast, speaks inside her one-bedroom apartment in Miramar, Fla., Wednesday, July 26, 2023. Lombana’s rent has increased each of the last two years and now amounts to nearly half her monthly income. «In a year, I will not be able to afford living here at all,» she said. (Photo: AP/Rebecca Blackwell)
“We’re building a multi-decade record number of units,” Nadji said. “It’s going to cause some softening and some pockets of overbuilding, but it’s not going to fundamentally resolve the housing shortage or the affordability problem for renters across the U.S.”
The surge in rents has made it difficult for workers to keep up with inflation despite solid wage gains the past few years and exacerbated a long-term trend. Between 1999 and 2022, U.S. rents soared 135%, while income grew 77%, according to data from Moody’s Analytics.
Realtor.com is forecasting that rents will drop an average of 0.9% this year. But while down nationally, rents are still rising in many markets around the country, especially those where hiring remains robust.
In the New York metro area, the median rent climbed 4.7% in June from a year earlier to $2,899, according to Realtor.com. In the Midwest, rents surged 5.6% in the Cincinnati metro area to $1,188, and 6.9% to $1,350 in the Indianapolis metro area.
Melissa Lombana, 43, a high school teacher and mountain bike enthusiast, sits on the patio of her one-bedroom apartment in Miramar, Fla., Wednesday, July 26, 2023. Lombana’s rent has increased each of the last two years and now amounts to nearly half her monthly income. «In a year, I will not be able to afford living here at all,» she said. (Photo: AP/Rebecca Blackwell)
The current spike in apartment construction alone isn’t going to be enough to address how costly renting has become for many Americans.
“For the rest of the 2020s rents will continue to grow because millennials are such a big generation and we’re very much in the hole in terms of building housing for that generation,” said Daryl Fairweather, chief economist at Redfin. “It will take many good years of new construction to build adequate housing for millennials.”
The bigger challenge is building more work force housing, because the cost of land, labor and navigating the government approval process incentivize developers to put up luxury apartments buildings.
Web designer Joey Di Girolamo, 50, works at his desk with dog Khaleesi snuggled at his feet, Thursday, July 20, 2023, in Pembroke Pines., Fla. Di Girolamo, who has worked from home since the pandemic, had to downsize from a two-bedroom to one-bedroom apartment, due to rent increases. (Photo: AP/Rebecca Blackwell)
Expanding the supply of modestly priced rentals would help alleviate the strain from so many new apartments targeting renters with high incomes, “although additional subsidies will be needed to make housing affordable to households with the lowest incomes,” researchers at Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies wrote in a recent report.
Despite the overall pullback in U.S. rents, Joey Di Girolamo, in Pembroke Pines, Florida, worries that he’ll face more sharp rent increases in coming years.
Web designer Joey Di Girolamo, 50, works at a desk up in a kitchen nook, Thursday, July 20, 2023, in Pembroke Pines., Fla. Di Girolamo, who has worked from home since the pandemic, had to downsize from a two-bedroom to one-bedroom apartment, due to rent increases. (Photo: AP/Rebecca Blackwell)
Last year, the web designer left a two-bedroom, two-bath townhome he rented for $2,200 a month to avoid a $600 a month increase. This year, his rent went up by $200, a nearly 10% jump.
“That blew me away,” said Di Girolamo, 50. “I’m just kind of dreading what it’s going to be like next year, but especially 3 or 4 years from now.”
El presidente Joe Biden posa para una foto con miembros del grupo Estudiantes Exigen Acciones tras dar un discurso en la Cumbre Nacional de Comunidades Seguras, en la Universidad de Hartford, en West Hartford, Connecticut, el 16 de junio de 2023. (Foto: AP/Susan Walsh/Archivo)
A sus 24 años, Alberto Rodriguez tiene abuelos más jóvenes que Joe Biden. Pero está más interesado en los logros del presidente de 80 años que en su edad.
“Gente tan joven como yo, todos nos enfocamos en nuestra vida cotidiana y él ha hecho cosas para ayudarnos a superar eso”, dijo Rodriguez, cocinero en el Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino en Las Vegas, sobre el apoyo a Biden entre los votantes jóvenes. Rodriguez señaló específicamente los pagos federales de ayuda por el COVID-19 y los aumentos del gasto público en infraestructura y otros programas sociales.
Votantes como él fueron una pieza clave de la coalición ganadora de Biden en 2020, que incluía mayorías de jóvenes, así como graduados universitarios, mujeres, votantes urbanos y suburbanos y afroestadounidenses. Mantener su apoyo será fundamental en estados muy disputados como Nevada, donde incluso los pequeños declives podrían tener consecuencias para la candidatura de reelección de Biden.
Su campaña de 2024 planea enfatizar mensajes que podrían resonar especialmente entre los jóvenes en las próximas semanas conforme se acerca el aniversario de la Ley de Reducción de la Inflación a mediados de agosto. Esa ley incluye cláusulas que la Casa Blanca aprovechará para argumentar que Biden ha hecho más que cualquier otro presidente para combatir el cambio climático.
Sin embargo, tales esfuerzos podrían chocar con la realidad personal de Biden, como cuando recordó que al asistir a un desfile del Día de San Patricio a los 14 años, apareció en una foto con el presidente Harry S. Truman.
“Puramente por accidente —supongo que fue un accidente— el fotógrafo del periódico tomó una foto mía haciendo contacto visual con Harry Truman”, dijo Biden entre risas la semana pasada en el Simposio sobre Derechos Civiles de Truman en Washington.
En 2020, el 61% de los votantes menores de 30 años —y el 55% de los que tienen entre 30 y 44 años— apoyaron a Biden, según AP VoteCast, una encuesta nacional del electorado.
Es un grupo de edad con el que los republicanos esperan lograr avances. El expresidente Donald Trump, que encabeza la contienda entre los aspirantes para la candidatura presidencial del Partido Republicano y es solo tres años y medio más joven que Biden, indicó el viernes: “Estamos abordando al mercado de los jóvenes como nadie lo había visto antes”.
Kevin Munoz, un vocero de la campaña de Biden, se refirió al movimiento “Make America Great Again” de Trump al argumentar que “los jóvenes resultan intensamente afectados por los temas centrales de esta elección, impulsados por la agenda extrema de MAGA”. Añadió que eso incluía inacción respecto al cambio climático, la violencia con armas de fuego y la deuda estudiantil.
“Nos reuniremos con los estadounidenses más jóvenes donde están y convertiremos su energía en acción”, afirmó Munoz en un comunicado.
Sin embargo, eso podría no apaciguar las preguntas sobre la edad cuando se trata de Biden o Trump.
“Sienten frustración y agotamiento ante la revancha”, sostuvo Terrance Woodbury, cofundador y director ejecutivo de la firma de encuestas demócrata HIT Strategies, sobre los votantes jóvenes.
“El que un sistema sólo siga reproduciéndose es un mayo problema que cualquiera de esos dos candidatos individualmente”, agregó Woodbury. “Y creo que a mucha gente simplemente le resulta insostenible”.
Una encuesta en abril de The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research encontró que sólo el 25% de los demócratas menores de 45 años dijeron que definitivamente apoyarían a Biden en una elección presidencial, en comparación con el 56% de los demócratas mayores. Sin embargo, la mayoría de los demócratas de todos los grupos de edad señalaron que probablemente lo apoyarían como candidato del partido
La campaña de Biden depende en gran parte del Comité Nacional Demócrata (DNC, por sus siglas en inglés), que durante los comicios de medio periodo del año pasado contrató a organizadores de campus en Pensilvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona y otros estados en disputa y ofreció reuniones semanales de coordinación de jóvenes para fomentar los contactos en clase y las “tormentas de dormitorios”. El DNC considera a los jóvenes uno de los sectores de votantes más críticos a los que deberá llegar en 2024 y promete “inversiones significativas” para movilizarlos. Hay planes en marcha para trabajar en ello, incluyendo las capacitaciones que realizó sobre la mejor manera de atraer votantes.
Por su parte, el Comité Nacional Republicano tratan de usar la edad de Biden en su contra, publicando videos en línea de Biden luciendo débil o cometiendo errores verbales, como cuando declaró en junio “Dios salve a la reina”, casi nueve meses después de la muerte de la reina Isabel II de Inglaterra.
Rodriguez se encogió de hombros ante los ataques en línea: “La gente puede hacer todos los memes y TikToks que quiera”, dijo.
Un contraste más marcado podría ser entre el presidente y los demócratas en ascenso, como el congresista por California Ro Khanna, de 46 años, y el secretario de Transporte, Pete Buttigieg, de 41 años y uno de los principales rivales de Biden en las elecciones primarias de 2020. Ninguno de los dos consideró seriamente postularse para la Casa Blanca en 2024 y han respaldado la reelección de Biden.
“Lo único que realmente importa es tu capacidad para hacer el trabajo”, subrayó recientemente en entrevista con CNN Buttigieg, que tenía 37 años cuando aspiró a la candidatura presidencial para 2020. Khanna dijo a Fox News Channel que la edad “obviamente” será un factor en 2024, pero sugirió que el personal de Biden lo “sobreprotege” y “cuanto más esté ahí fuera, mejor”.
Otros importantes jóvenes demócratas se han alineado para respaldar a Biden. El legislador demócrata de Florida Maxwell Frost, que fue elegido para el Congreso el año pasado a los 26 años, forma parte de la junta asesora de la campaña de Biden, al igual que el gobernador de Maryland Wes Moore, de 44 años. La congresista de Nueva York, Alexandra Ocasio Cortez, de 33 años, manifestó recientemente su respaldo a Biden.
El alcalde de Chicago, Brandon Johnson, un progresista que asevera que la sólida participación entre los votantes jóvenes lo ayudó a ganar una segunda vuelta electoral esta primavera, indicó que las políticas de Biden trascienden su edad. Johnson señaló que el trabajo del presidente “en torno a la justicia climática habla no sólo a esta generación, sino a las futuras generaciones”.
“La emoción que creo que vamos a tener hablará del increíble trabajo y la organización que estamos comprometidos a realizar como partido”, dijo Johnson, de 47 años. “Y estamos ansiosos por trabajar con el presidente en el transcurso de sus próximos cuatro años”.
Aún así, Randi Weingarten, presidenta de la Federación Estadounidense de Maestros, reconoció que incluso los partidarios del presidente entienden qué tan exigente puede ser la Casa Blanca.
“La gente se preocupa por Joe Biden. Se preocupa como uno se preocuparía por su amado padre o un abuelo”, afirmó Weingarten, de 65 años. “Lo que normalmente escuchas de los demócratas es esta sensación de ‘él está bien, sólo quiero que esté bien’. Y la consternación de ‘éste es un trabajo duro’”.
Biden dijo que analizó “detenidamente” su edad cuando decidió buscar un segundo mandato. Pero también ha tratado de sugerir que su edad y experiencia son activos en lugar de pasivos al bromear repetidamente sobre ellos. Eso es muy distinto a su postura de 2020, cuando Biden se autodenominó “candidato de transición” y se comprometió a ser un “puente” para los demócratas más jóvenes.
Santiago Mayer, el fundador de Voters of Tomorrow, que tiene más de 20 sucursales en todo el país y trabaja para aumentar el compromiso político entre los votantes jóvenes, argumenta que Biden no está incumpliendo su promesa pasada al postularse para la reelección, sino manteniéndola.
“Simplemente necesita más tiempo”, dijo Mayer, quien egresó de la Universidad Estatal de California en Long Beach en mayo. “Creo que el segundo mandato es una parte muy importante de ese compromiso. Está construyendo un futuro progresista para los jóvenes y en realidad no puede pasar el relevo hasta que se haya hecho”.
Una pieza política clave de los esfuerzos de Biden para atraer a los votantes jóvenes, brindar alivio de la deuda estudiantil, fue anulada recientemente por la Corte Suprema. La Casa Blanca ha lanzado un nuevo intento, pero tomará más tiempo.
“Por supuesto que va a suavizar algo de eso, porque la gente está decepcionada”, dijo Weingarten sobre el efecto del fallo en el entusiasmo por Biden. Pero agregó que la decisión también podría motivar a los ansiosos jóvenes partidarios de Biden para mostrar su apoyo al plan alternativo del presidente.
“También se trata de la pelea”, sostuvo Weingarten, “no sólo de los resultados”.
Ben Gallegos sits on the porch of his family's home in the Globeville neighborhood with his dog, Coca Smiles, as the daytime high temperature soars toward triple digits, Thursday, July 27, 2023, in north Denver. Gallegos has taken several measures to keep his home cool in spite of lacking central air conditioning. (Photo: AP/David Zalubowski)
As Denver neared triple-digit temperatures, Ben Gallegos sat shirtless on his porch swatting flies off his legs and spritzing himself with a misting fan to try to get through the heat. Gallegos, like many in the nation’s poorest neighborhoods, doesn’t have air conditioning.
The 68-year-old covers his windows with mattress foam to insulate against the heat and sleeps in the concrete basement. He knows high temperatures can cause heat stroke and death, and his lung condition makes him more susceptible. But the retired brick layer, who survives on about $1,000 a month largely from Social Security, says air conditioning is out of reach.
“Take me about 12 years to save up for something like that,» he said. “If it’s hard to breath, I’ll get down to emergency.”
As climate change fans hotter and longer heat waves, breaking record temperatures across the U.S. and leaving dozens dead, the poorest Americans suffer the hottest days with the fewest defenses. Air conditioning, once a luxury, is now a matter of survival.
As Phoenix weathered its 27th consecutive day above 110 degrees (43 Celsius) Wednesday, the nine who died indoors didn’t have functioning air conditioning, or it was turned off. Last year, all 86 heat-related deaths indoors were in uncooled environments.
“To explain it fairly simply: Heat kills,” said Kristie Ebi, a University of Washington professor who researches heat and health. “Once the heat wave starts, mortality starts in about 24 hours.»
Ben Gallegos stands outside his family’s home in the Globeville neighborhood as the daytime high temperature soars toward triple digits, Thursday, July 27, 2023, in north Denver. Gallegos has taken several measures to keep his home cool in spite of lacking central air conditioning. As climate change fans hotter and longer heat waves, breaking record temperatures and leaving dozens dead, the poorest Americans suffer the hottest days with the fewest defenses. Air conditioning, once a luxury, is now a matter of survival. (Photo: AP/David Zalubowski)
It’s the poorest and people of color, from Kansas City to Detroit to New York City and beyond, who are far more likely to face grueling heat without air conditioning, according to a Boston University analysis of 115 U.S. metros.
“The temperature differences … between lower-income neighborhoods, neighborhoods of color and their wealthier, whiter counterparts have pretty severe consequences,” said Cate Mingoya-LaFortune of Groundwork USA, an environmental justice organization. “There are these really big consequences like death. … But there’s also ambient misery.”
Some have window units that can offer respite, but “in the dead of heat, it don’t do nothing,” said Melody Clark, who stopped Friday to get food at a nonprofit in Kansas City, Kansas, as temperatures soared to 101, and high humidity made it feel like 109. When the central air conditioning at her rental house went on the fritz, her landlord installed a window unit. But it doesn’t do much during the day.
Ben Gallegos pulls back a covering to show the foam pad used to insulate a window in his family’s home in the Globeville neighborhood as the daytime high temperature soars toward triple digits, Thursday, July 27, 2023, in north Denver. Gallegos has taken several measures to keep his home cool in spite of lacking central air conditioning. (Photo: AP/David Zalubowski)
So the 45-year-old wets her hair, cooks outside on a propane grill and keeps the lights off indoors. She’s taken the bus to the library to cool off. At night she flips the box unit on, hauling her bed into the room where it’s located to sleep.
As far as her two teenagers, she said: “They aren’t little bitty. We aren’t dying in the heat. … They don’t complain.”
While billions in federal funding have been allocated to subsidize utility costs and the installation of cooling systems, experts say they often only support a fraction of the most vulnerable families and some still require prohibitive upfront costs. Installing a centralized heat pump system for heating and cooling can easily reach $25,000.
President Joe Biden announced steps on Thursday to defend against extreme heat, highlighting the expansion of the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which funnels money through states to help poorer households pay utility bills.
While the program is critical, said Michelle Graff, who studies the subsidy at Cleveland State University, only about 16% of the nation’s eligible population is actually reached. Nearly half of states don’t offer the federal dollars for summer cooling.
“So people are engaging in coping mechanisms, like they’re turning on their air conditioners later and leaving their homes hotter,” Graff said.
While frigid temperatures and high heating bills birthed the term “heat or eat,” she said, “we can now transition to AC or eat, where people are going to have to make difficult decisions.”
Mansions dot a tree-lined street in the Country Club neighborhood in Denver, July 24, 2023. Temperatures are hotter in America’s low-income neighborhoods like the Denver suburb of Globeville, where many residents are low-income and people of color living in stretches of concrete that hold heat like a cast-iron skillet. Comparatively, in wealthy neighborhoods such as Country Club, mansions pocket a sea of vegetation which cools the area. (Photo: AP/Brittany Peterson)
As temperatures rise, so does the cost of cooling. And temperatures are already hotter in America’s low-income neighborhoods like Gallegos’ Denver suburb of Globeville, where people live along stretches of asphalt and concrete that hold heat like a cast-iron skillet. Surface temperatures there can be roughly 8 degrees hotter than in Denver’s wealthier neighborhoods, where a sea of vegetation cools the area, according to the environmental advocacy group American Forests.
This disparity plays out nationwide. Researchers at the University of San Diego analyzed 1,056 counties and in over 70%, the poorest areas and those with higher Black, Hispanic and Asian populations were significantly hotter.
About one in 10 U.S. households have no air conditioning, a disparity compounded for marginalized groups, according to a study by the Brookings Institution. Less than 4% of Detroit’s white households don’t have air conditioning; it’s 15% for Black households.
Lucy Molina sits in her living room in Commerce City, Colo., on Tuesday, July 25, 2023. Without central air conditioning, the single mother’s home in one of the Denver metro’s poorest areas has reached 107 degrees Fahrenheit (41.7 Celsius), she said. America’s poorest residents and people of color are far more likely to face grueling heat without air conditioning to keep their body temperatures down, according to a Boston University analysis of 115 U.S. cities. (Photo: AP/Thomas Peipert)
At noon on Friday, Katrice Sullivan sat on the porch of her rented house on Detroit’s westside. It was hot and muggy, but even steamier inside the house. Even if she had air conditioning, Sullivan said she’d choose her moments to run it to keep her electricity bill down.
The 37-year-old factory worker pours water on her head, freezes towels to put around her neck, and sits in her car with the air conditioner on. “Some people here spend every dollar for food, so air conditioning is something they can’t afford,” she said.
Shannon Lewis, 38, lived in her Detroit home for nearly 20 years without air conditioning. Lewis’s bedroom was the only place with a window unit, so she’d squeeze her teenager, 8-year-old and 3-year-old-twins into her queen-size bed to sleep, eat meals and watch television.
“So it was like cool in one room and a heat stroke in another,” Lewis said. For the first time, Lewis now has air conditioning through a local non-profit, she said. “We don’t have to sleep or eat in the same room, we are able to come out, sit at the dining room table, eat like a family.»
Lucy Molina stands in her front yard in Commerce City, Colo., on Tuesday, July 25, 2023. Without central air conditioning, the single mother’s home in one of the Denver metro’s poorest areas has reached 107 degrees Fahrenheit (41.7 Celsius), she said. America’s poorest residents and people of color are far more likely to face grueling heat without air conditioning to keep their body temperatures down, according to a Boston University analysis of 115 U.S. cities. (Photo: AP/Thomas Peipert)
After at least 54 died during a 2021 heat wave, mostly elderly people without air conditioning, in the Portland area, Oregon passed a law prohibiting landlords from placing blanket bans on air conditioning units. By and large, however, states don’t have laws requiring landlords to provide cooling.
In the federal Inflation Reduction Act, billions were set aside for tax credits and rebates to help families install energy-efficient cooling systems, but some of those are yet to be available. For people like Gallegos, who doesn’t pay taxes, the available credits are worthless.
The law also offers rebates, the kind of state and federal point-of-sale discounts that Amanda Morian has looked into for her 640-square-foot home.
Riverside Cemetery is seen in front of an oil refinery in Commerce City, Colo., on Tuesday, July 25, 2023. Residents in the area say fumes from the refinery and the lack of trees make their neighborhood hotter. As climate change fans hotter and longer heat waves, breaking record temperatures across the U.S. and leaving dozens dead, the poorest Americans suffer the hottest days with the fewest defenses. Air conditioning, once a luxury, is now a matter of survival. (Photo: AP/Thomas Peipert)
Morian, who has a 13-week-old baby susceptible to hot weather, is desperate to keep her house in Denver’s Globeville suburb cool. She bought thermal curtains, ceiling fans and runs a window unit. At night she tries to do skin-to-skin touch to regulate the baby’s body temperature. When the back door opens in the afternoon, she said, the indoor temperature jumps a degree.
“All of those are just to take the edge off, it’s not enough to actually make it cool. It’s enough to keep us from dying,” she said.
She got estimates from four different companies for installing a cooling system, but every project was between $20,000 and $25,000, she said. Even with subsidies she can’t afford it.
A shirtless man guides his wheelchair down the bicycle lane along 45th Avenue as tempratures rise toward triple digits in the Globeville neighborhood Wednesday, July 26, 2023, in north Denver. (Photo: AP/David Zalubowski)
“I’m finding that you have to afford the project in the first place and then it’s like having a bonus coupon to take $5,000 off of the sticker price,» she said.
Lucy Molina, a single mom in Commerce City, one of Denver’s poorest areas, said her home has reached 107 degrees without air conditioning. Nearby, Molina’s two teenage children slurped popsicles to cool off, lingering in front of the open freezer.
Lucy Molina tends to her garden in Commerce City, Colo., on Tuesday, July 25, 2023. Without central air conditioning, the single mother’s home in one of the Denver metro’s poorest areas has reached 107 degrees Fahrenheit, she said. America’s poorest residents and people of color are far more likely to face grueling heat without air conditioning to keep their body temperatures down, according to a Boston University analysis of 115 U.S. cities. (Photo: AP/Thomas Peipert)
For Molina, who bustled around her kitchen on a recent day when temperatures reached 99 degrees outdoors, it’s hard to see any path to a cooling respite.
CHICAGO (AP) — Leading up to the 2020 election, Facebook ads targeting Latino and Asian American voters described Joe Biden as a communist. A local station claimed a Black Lives Matter co-founder practiced witchcraft. Doctored images showed dogs urinating on Donald Trump campaign posters.
None of these claims was true, but they scorched through social media sites that advocates say have fueled election misinformation in communities of color.
As the 2024 election approaches, community organizations are preparing for what they expect to be a worsening onslaught of disinformation targeting communities of color and immigrant communities. They say the tailored campaigns challenge assumptions of what kinds of voters are susceptible to election conspiracies and distrust in voting systems.
“They’re getting more complex, more sophisticated, and spreading like wildfire,” said Sarah Shah, director of policy and community engagement at the advocacy group Indian American Impact, which runs the fact-checking site Desifacts.org. “ What we saw in 2020, unfortunately, will probably be fairly mild in comparison to what we will see in the months leading up to 2024.»
A growing subset of communities of color, especially immigrants for whom English is not their first language, are questioning the integrity of U.S. voting processes and subscribing to Trump’s lies of a stolen 2020 election, said Jenny Liu, mis/disinformation policy manager at the nonprofit Asian Americans Advancing Justice. Still, she said these communities are largely left out of conversations about misinformation.
“When you think of the typical consumer of a conspiracy theory, you think of someone who’s older, maybe from a rural area, maybe a white man,” she said. “You don’t think of Chinese Americans scrolling through WeChat. That’s why this narrative glosses over and erases a lot of the disinformation harms that many communities of colors face.”Tailoring disinformation
In addition to general misinformation themes about voting machines and mail-in voting, groups are catering their messaging to communities of color, experts say.
For example, immigrants from authoritarian regimes in countries like Venezuela or who have lived through the Chinese Cultural Revolution may be “more vulnerable to misinformation claiming politicians are wanting to turn the U.S. into a Socialist state,” said Inga Trauthig, head of research for the Propaganda Research Lab at the Center for Media Engagement at the University of Texas at Austin. People from countries that have not recently had free and fair elections may have a preexisting distrust of elections and authority that may make them vulnerable to misinformation as well, Trauthig said.
Disinformation efforts often hinge on topics most important to each community, whether that is public safety, immigration, abortion, education, inflation or alleged extramarital affairs, said Laura Zommer, co-founder of the Spanish-language fact-checking group Factchequeado.
“It takes advantage of their very real fear and trauma from their experiences in their home countries,” Zommer said.
Other vulnerabilities include language barriers and a lack of knowledge of the U.S. media landscape and how to find credible U.S. news sources, several misinformation experts told The Associated Press. Many immigrants rely on translated content for voting information, leaving space for bad actors to inject misinformation.
“These tactics exploit information vacuums when there’s a lot of uncertainty around how these processes work, especially because a lot of election materials may not be translated in the languages our communities speak or be available in forms they are likely to access,” said Clara Jiménez Cruz, another co-founder of Factchequeado.
Misinformation can also arise from mistranslations. The Brookings Institute, a nonprofit think tank, found examples of mistranslations in Colombian, Cuban and Venezuelan WhatsApp groups, where “progressive” was translated to “progresista,” which carries “far-left connotations that are closer to the Spanish words ‘socialista’ and ‘comunista.’”How disinformation spreads
Disinformation, often in languages like Spanish, Mandarin or Hindi, flows onto social media apps like WhatsApp and WeChat heavily used by communities of color.
Minority communities that believe their views and perspectives aren’t represented by the mainstream are likely to “retreat into more private spaces” found on messaging apps or groups on social media sites like Facebook, Trauthig said.
“But disinformation also targets them on these platforms, even though it may feel to them to be that safer space,” she said.
Messages on WhatsApp are also encrypted and can’t be easily seen or traced by moderators or fact-checkers.
“As a result, messages on apps like WhatsApp often fly under the radar and are allowed to spread and spread, largely unchecked,” said Randy Abreu, policy counsel for the National Hispanic Media Coalition, which leads the Spanish Language Disinformation Coalition.
Abreu also raised concerns about Spanish YouTube channels and radio shows that are growing in popularity. He said the coalition is tracking more and more YouTube and radio personalities who are spreading misinformation in Spanish.
A 2022 report by the left-leaning watchdog group Media Matters tracked 40 Spanish-language YouTube videos spreading misinformation about U.S. elections. Many of these videos remained on the platform, despite violating YouTube election misinformation policy, the report said.Disinformation and disenfranchising communities of color
Amid changes in voting policies at state and local levels, advocates are sounding the alarm on how disinformation about voting in 2024 may target communities of color. Many of these efforts have surged as Asian American, Black and Latino communities have grown in political power, said María Teresa Kumar, founding president of the nonprofit advocacy group Voto Latino.
“Disinformation is, at its core, meant to be a sort of voter suppression tactic for communities of color,” she said. “It targets communities of color in a way that feeds into their already justifiable concerns that the system is stacked against them.»
The tactics also feed into a history “as old as the Jim Crow era of attempting to disenfranchise people of color, going back to voter intimidation and suppression efforts after the Civil Rights Act of 1866,” said Atiba Ellis, a professor of law at Case Western Reserve University School of Law.
While many of the same recycled claims around alleged fraud in the 2020 and 2022 elections are expected to resurface, experts say disinformation campaigns will likely be more sophisticated and granular in attempts to target specific groups of voters of color.
Trauthig also raised concerns about how layoffs and instability at social media platforms like Twitter may leave them less prepared to tackle misinformation in 2024. It also remains to be seen how new social media platforms like Threads will approach the threat of misinformation. Changes in policies like WhatsApp launching a “Communities” function connecting multiple groups and expanding group chat sizes may also “have big implications for how quickly misinformation will spread on the platform,” she said.
In response to the mounting threat of misinformation, Indian American Impact is ramping up its fact-checking efforts through what the organization says is the first fact-checking website specifically for South Asian Americans. Shah said the group is drawing inspiration from 2022 projects, including a voting toolkit using memes with Bollywood characters and passing out Parle-G crackers with voting information stickers at Indian grocery stores.
Cruz of Factchequeado is paying close attention to misinformation in swing states with significant Latino populations like Nevada and Arizona. And Liu of Asian Americans Advancing Justice is reviewing misinformation trends from previous elections to strategize about how to inoculate Asian American voters against them.
Still, they say there is more work to be done.
Critics are urging social media companies to invest in content moderation and fact-checking in languages other than English. Government and election officials should also make voting information more accessible to non-English speakers, organize media literacy trainings in community spaces and identify “trusted messengers” in communities of color to help approach trends in misinformation narratives, experts said.
“These are not monolithic groups,” Cruz said. “This disinformation is very specifically tailored to each of these communities and their fears. So we also need to be partnering with grassroots organizations in each of these communities to tailor our approaches. If we don’t take the time to do this work, our democracy is at stake.”
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Manuel Castro (i), comisionado de Asuntos de los Inmigrantes, junto a representantes de las organizaciones Bike NY y Mexican Coalition, entregan bicicletas a inmigrantes, hoy, en New York (Estados Unidos). EFE/ Ángel Colmenares
Un grupo de inmigrantes que llegaron en el último año a Nueva York y que viven en El Bronx recibieron hoy una bicicleta, donadas por neoyorquinos, como parte de una iniciativa de ONGs y la Alcaldía de la ciudad que se puso en marcha este año para que les sirvan de herramienta de trabajo y puedan así ayudar a sus familias.
La idea del programa piloto «Bicicletas para solicitantes de asilo» surgió de la ONG Bike New York, que ofrece programas gratuitos de educación sobre bicicletas, a la que se sumó la Oficina para Asuntos del Inmigrante y el Departamento de Transporte de la ciudad para proveer a los recién llegados con este medio de transporte.
Organizaciones que proveen servicios a inmigrantes eligen a las personas que recibirán la donación, explicó a EFE Jairo Guzmán, presidente y fundador de Coalición Mexicana, que tiene su sede en una iglesia en una comunidad de bajos recursos en El Bronx donde hoy se hizo la entrega a seis mujeres y seis hombres.
Algunos viven en refugios y otros en apartamentos donde comparten la vivienda con varias familias «y están ansiosos por poder tener un trabajo y facilidad para moverse», dijo a EFE Guzmán.
Estas personas habían acudido a la organización en busca de ayuda; una vez conocidas sus historias la ONG eligió a doce beneficiarios que hoy recibieron sus bicicletas, debidamente puestas a punto y con lunes; además, se entregó a cada ciclista un casco y un candado para protegerlas de robo.
BICICLETAS PARA TRANSPORTAR TAMALES
La mayoría de las mujeres que recibieron hoy la bicicleta son vendedoras ambulantes, entre ellas Agustina, mexicana que vende tamales frente a la iglesia y dice que ahora podrá llevar su producto a otros lugares en El Bronx «en lugar de quedarme esperando a ver quién se detiene a comprar».
Aleida, una guatemalteca de 22 años que llegó hace tres meses a Nueva York junto a su esposo e hija de tres, dijo a EFE que la bicicleta le permitirá comenzar a trabajar haciendo entrega de comidas.
«La quiero para trabajar ya que eso me permitirá llevar un plato de comida a mi hija», y ayudar a sus familiares en Guatemala a pagar el préstamo que hicieron para pagar al cartel que les secuestró (a ella, su esposo e hija) cuando llegaron a México, dijo la inmigrante, que vive en un albergue en El Bronx y acudió acompañada por la niña.
Aleida lamentó además que los 10.000 quetzales (unos 1.273 dólares) del préstamo que tuvo que pedir al banco se convirtieron en el doble a la hora de devolverlo. «Eso es mucho dinero», afirmó.
El mexicano Manuel Castro, comisionado de la Oficina para Asuntos del Inmigrante, se mostró complacido de la iniciativa que les permite ayudar a los inmigrantes «en su viaje para cumplir su sueño americano» y de los neoyorquinos que han donado las bicicletas.
Como parte de esta iniciativa ya se han donado 200 bicicletas de las que la mitad han sido ya distribuidas.
