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As the nation learned of the tragedy at the Indiana State Fair, the family of Christina Santiago was also informed that she was one of the five killed when the fair’s stage collapsed into the concert goers.

Saturday evening, a crowd had gathered around the fair’s stage in preparation of country band Sugarland’s performance. A storm, miles away, had forced high-speed winds towards the stage, and though people were moving away from the stage area, Christina and a number of others did not get away fast enough.

Christina, 29, who now lived in Chicago, was born in the Bronx, and was a strong advocate for LGBT rights. She was at the fair with her partner Alisha Brennon, and the two were up in the front row when the accident occurred. In a twist of fate, the two had just posted to Facebook that the night was “perfect” minutes before the tragedy. Brennon was critically injured.

Santiago managed the Howard Brown Health Center in Chicago, a health center geared towards the health of gays, lesbians, and other members of the LGBT community.

Santiago and Brennon were planning a September 2012 ceremony after getting engaged in June after Cook County legalized civil unions.

Read more at New York Daily News →

August 16 is National Rum day, and to celebrate it, we bring you a delicious selection of recipes and cocktails that call for the Captain’s favorite beverage!

Rum is believed to have originated in the island of Barbados, when 17th century plantation slaves realized they could ferment sugar cane byproducts such as molasses, and then distill it, concentrating the alcohol content, and removing impurities. Today the majority of rum production is concentrated in the Caribbean and Latin America.  Rums produced in Spanish speaking countries tends to be of the añejo variety which is smoother.

“Sugar cane wine” as it was described early on became the signature alcoholic beverage of the Caribbean, as it is so simple to make, potent and easy to mix.

The HS-News Mai-Tai

2 cups light rum
1 cup spiced rum
1 cup 151 proof rum
1 cup orange curacao (orange flavored liqueur)
1 cup almond flavored syrup
¼ of a cup honey
¼ of a cup of cherry syrup
10 limes, juiced
1/2 gallon fresh orange juice

Combine the light rum, dark rum, 151 rum, orange liqueur, almond syrup, honey, cherry syrup, and lime juice in a large jar. Stir and top off with orange juice. Serve on the rocks in 8 ounce glasses.

HS-News Scrumptious Piña Colada

1 cup coconut milk
1/4 cup of Almond milk
¼ cup of heavy cream
1 cup pineapple juice
1 ½  cups of rum
3 tablespoons brown sugar
8 ice cubes

In a blender, combine all ingredients until smooth. Serve immediately.

HS-News Delicious Rum Cupcakes

1 tablespoon melted butter
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup chopped walnuts
1 (18.25 ounce) package of yellow cake mix
1 (3.5 ounce) package of instant French vanilla pudding
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup rum
4 eggs

(Glaze)
1/4 cup butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/8 cup heavy cream
1/8 cup rum

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Coat muffin or cupcake pan with 1 tablespoon melted butter. Sprinkle 1/4 cup of sugar and finely chopped pecans coating the pan.
In a large bowl, combine the cake mix and instant pudding. Add 1/2 cup water, 1/2 cup oil, 1/2 cup rum and 4 eggs, mix until smooth, fill the cupcake molds half way through.

Bake for 55 to 60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean.

To make the glaze, combine 1/4 cup butter, 1/2 cup sugar, 1/8 cup water and 1/8 cup rum in a saucepan over medium heat. Bring to a boil, then remove from the stove. Pour glaze over the hot cupcakes and allow them to cool before taking them out of the pan.

Read more by HS News Staff →

As Hollywood looks to drive waning movie ticket sales, their focus should be on the growing Hispanic population and their use of mobile devices throughout the movie-planning process. This insight comes from research within The Mobile Consumer: Hispanics, Movies & Mobile, a new report by multicultural marketing agency Briabe Mobile and MocoSpace, the largest entertainment destination on the mobile Internet.

Based on the results from a June 2011 survey of MocoSpace users, the study revealed Hispanics attend movies more frequently than other racial demographics, and they’re using their mobile devices to find theaters, movie times and reviews.

Hispanics are known to be a driving force for tickets sales. A recent Nielsen study found Hispanics make up approximately 15 percent of the U.S. population, but they represent 28 percent of today’s frequent moviegoers. This study echoed those findings, but also had key findings about Hispanics’ movie-attending habits.

Key findings include the following:
o     75 percent of Hispanics go to the movie theater once a month, 25 percent see movies three times a month. This is more often than all other polled ethnic demographics.
o     Hispanic Americans use their phones for almost every part of the film-discovery process. 72 percent use their mobile devices for overall movie planning. Of those:
o     65 percent use their mobile devices to find showtimes and locations
o     39 percent use it to view trailers
o     35 percent use it to discover movies
o     28 percent use it to get reviews
o     14 percent use it to buy tickets
o     55 percent use their phones to access movie information within the four hours just prior to seeing a movie.

Not only are Hispanics using their phones to seek out movie information, the report found they’re influenced by mobile advertisements, too. One out of four interviewed said they look to search and mobile banner ads when deciding what film to see. After viewing a film, 55 percent of Hispanics said they discuss their opinion of the movie on social networks.

Read more at Briabe Mobile →

According to a recently released study, more than 10 years after the Cabo Pulmo National Park of Mexico banned fishing in its waters, the fish population has seen a 460 percent increase.

From 1999 to 2009 researchers at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California in San Diego studied the aquatic population made up of groupers, manta rays, snappers, trevally, and sharks and recorded that it had increased to amazing levels.

In 1995, those living around the water enforced a “no take” policy after Cabo Pulmo was almost completely without fish. Four years after the policy was enacted, the researchers checked the 71-square-kilometer marine park and found that its fish population was still very low.

Now, as of 2009, the fish are the highest they have been in years and have made the Cabo Pulmo the “most robust marine reserve in the world,” wrote the International Business Times.

The scientists’ study was published in the Public Library of Science (PLoS) ONE journal.

Read more at International Business Times →

The disorder could have been detected and prevented early on, but due to a precarious financial situation, the Ramírez boys have never seen an specialist. The mother of the boys abandoned them, and Felipe Ramírez, the father is a produce grower in the rural town of Magueyal, in South Dominican Republic, who can’t afford the plastic surgery his kids need.

The disorder became apparent as early as when the boys were 9 years old. The boys, now 10, 12 and 17, don’t present other female characteristics than enlarged breasts, and emphasize their genital areas are and look 100% male.

The doctor interviewed in the video says that the rare condition is genetic, as the kids uncle also has enlarged breasts, and that the disorder is most likely due to a hormonal anomaly passed on through generations of the area’s small congenital gene pool.

Watch the video below, and leave us your comments in the forum section!

Read more by HS News Staff →

When Brazilian immigrant Adriana da Silva went under the knife for breast surgery she just wanted to look beautiful for the milestone birthday she had coming up. Neither her nor her family realized that reach for beauty would cost her her life.

Da Silva, 39, was looking forward to feeling her best for her 40th birthday. She went in for breast augmentation surgery Saturday August 6th, but just one day after the surgery she said she was light-headed, and then collapsed on the bathroom floor. She was pronounced dead at the hospital, where doctors reportedly told the family they found a clot in her heart.

Friends of the Framingham, Massachusetts resident said she just wanted to look more beautiful as she entered her 40’s.

The mother of three went to Dr. Sanjeev Sharma’s Destination Beauty MedSpa, in Framingham. The medical spa’s website advertises breast augmentation for $3500-4500. According to state licensing boards, Dr. Sharma is a family practitioner and is not indentified as a plastic surgery expert. However, in the 16 years the doctor has been practicing, there have been no malpractice, criminal, or disciplinary complaints formally filed against him.

The medical examiner has not yet released the cause of death as autopsy results could take up to two weeks.

Local businesses have set up donation boxes for the family, which has retained Boston lawyer David-Ross Williamson.

Da Silva was laid to rest August 11th, just days before she would have turned 40.

Read more at Daily Mail →

For the first time ever in Costa Rica, and in response to a bishop’s remarks on modesty,  thousands of women marched to stop objectification and violence against women.

The title of the march might be a little misleading; a “Slut Walk,” or “Marcha de las Putas” has very little to do with “Putas” and more with outrage toward groups that blame sexual violence on the way women dress or act, and who promote in young women the idea that as a preemptive measure against rape, women must dress conservatively, enter public life “without imitating men,” strengthen their role at home as mothers and family members and create a more humane world by exercising creativity in the household.

At a ceremony in Cartago on August 2, as Costa Rica’s clergy celebrated in honor of the nation’s patron saint, the Virgen de los Angeles, Bishop José Francisco Ulloa called on women to dress “modestly” to not be “dehumanized” and “objectified.” Mexican Cardinal Francisco Robles, the proxy of Pope Benedict XVI at the event, said that a woman’s mission “does not consist in emulating men.”

Montserrat Sagot, a university professor and feminist leader, promoted the march via Facebook, and said more than 3,000 women confirmed their support, and showed up for Sunday’s march to show their support and condemn the ultra-conservative with banners with such slogans as “Don’t see Sluts where there’s only Free Women” and “Clothes and drinking don’t cause rape, RAPISTS cause rape.”

Costa Rica is the latest nation to host a “Slut Walk,” a increasingly popular protesting march which begun in Canada, and has had replicas in Great Britain, India, Mexico, Nicaragua, Honduras and Argentina.

Read more by HS News Staff →

According to a report published in the Journal of Preventative Medicine, those smoking menthol cigarettes have more difficulty quitting than those who smoke regular cigarettes, with Puerto Rican menthol smokers appearing to have the most difficulty.

The report stated Hispanic smokers in Puerto Rico were 43 percent less likely to quit than non-menthol cigarette smokers. African-American menthol smokers were 19 percent less likely to quit, which is worrisome since 71 percent of black smokers preferred the menthols.

“Historically, smoking cessation research has generally grouped Hispanics together and contrasted them with non-Hispanic whites, thus ignoring the broad heterogeneity of the Hispanic population,” says researcher Cristine D. Delnevo, PhD, MPH, of the Center for Tobacco Surveillance and Evaluation Research at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey in a news release. “By further drilling down into these subgroups, the opportunity exists to develop targeted interventions for quit efforts among this population.”

Authors of the report joined the Federal Drug Administration in its push to stop the selling of menthol cigarettes, saying, “Because our evidence suggests that the presence of menthol may partially explain the observed differences in cessation outcomes, the recent calls to ban this flavoring would be prudent and evidence-based.”

Since 2006, menthol cigarettes have made up 20 percent of the U.S. cigarette market, and are said to inhibit nicotine metabolism, allowing the nicotine to remain in the bloodstream longer than non-menthol cigarettes.

Read more at ThirdAge →

Bradley Cooper has realized that his schedule starting this fall is way too busy to throw on top preparing and embodying the character of Eric Draven, in Juan Carlo’s Fresnadillo’s remake of the ’94 blockbuster directed by Alex Proyas, starring the late Brandon Lee.  Copper’s super busy schedule for next year includes roles in “Silver Linings Playbook” and an adaptation of John Milton’s epic poem “Paradise Lost.”

Since Cooper’s departure from the project, two names have been thrown out as the possible replacement: Channing Tatum and Mark Wahlberg.

Which one do you think would make a best Crow? Is there another actor you would prefer to see kick major butt dressed in black and with heavy face makeup?

Let us know in our forums section!

Read more by HS News Staff →

Friday, the Dominican Republic’s tourism minister Francisco Javier Garcia announced that construction of a modern cruise terminal just west of Puerto Plata in Maimón Bay will begin soon.

Carnival Corporation, known the world around for their cruise lines, has invested $65 million to have the terminal and the town around it turned into a “cruise destination”, to include retail shops, restaurants, and a recreation complex for cruise passengers.

When finished, the terminal will be large enough to berth two large cruise ships, and is expected to bring in around $30 million in its first year in operation.

The terminal with take up about 50,000 square meters at Maimón Bay, with construction starting October 1 and lasting two years. It will create 800 direct jobs, and as the town becomes more popular, more jobs will likely be created.

Read more at USA TODAY →

Michelin Star winner Jesús Sánchez and artist Alfonso Barragán have created a show where the fluorescent food is the light of the evening. 

“Phosphophagia”  or “the art of Eating Light” is a half art happening, half food-tasting extravaganza that has sparked the curiosity of Spaniards, who travel to Santander from all over to… eat some light.

Upon arrival, guests are welcomed by a strange, dark, ambiance; a large art gallery room is pitch black except for the chef’s counter, constantly lit with the food he prepares, and TV screens hung high and hooked onto cameras documenting what happens in the gallery.

Very loud music makes it hard to communicate with each other but it is all part of the experience, as the artists behind it put it. “I’m not after the audience’s satisfaction. My only hope is for them to live through this experience and it stays in their memory. The important thing is not whether it was good or bad, but that it was memorable, and they crave to come back again”

Guests look, smell, participate and most importantly experience tasting phosphorescent foods like glittering sugar hearts, sparkling shots of gin inside plastic syringes, sticky twinkling pieces of meringue, and other iridescent hors d’oeuvres, deserts and beverages.

Audiences here complete the artwork, as eating the light and taking it home in their bellies, according with the chef and artist takes the whole piece to a new level “our art piece concludes when we go to the bathroom tomorrow, when we go to the bathroom. We are going to pee fluorescent” says Barragán.

Read more at EL País →

The University of Michigan has announced that it has cancelled an internship program based in the Central American country of El Salvador after three of its students were robbed at gun point.

The program known as the Global Intercultural Experience is for undergraduates of UofM as a type of study aboard program.  The robberies occurred at the end of July in the capital city of San Salvador.

A University spokesmen noted that 14 students and their faculty leaders were asked to leave El Salvador and return to the States, since it was believed criminals were intentionally targeting students from abroad.

Read more at Detroit Free Press →

CBP U.S. Border Patrol agents assigned to the Eagle Pass South Station seized more than 260 pounds of cocaine Friday evening. The incident marked the largest cocaine seizure in the Del Rio Border Patrol Sector since August 2006.

Agents manning a traffic checkpoint near Eagle Pass around 8 p.m Friday, referred a 1997 Ford F-150 pickup truck for further inspection after a canine team conducted a cursory inspection and alerted to the vehicle. In the bed of the pickup, agents found a roll of carpet. Using a non-intrusive imaging system, agents detected anomalies within the carpet.

Inside the carpet roll, agents found a cardboard cylinder filled with 100 bricks of cocaine, weighing a total of 263.75 pounds, estimated to be worth $8,440,000.

The driver, a 42-year-old woman, was arrested and turned over to the Drug Enforcement Administration, along with the cocaine and pickup truck. The woman’s three minor children, who were also in the vehicle, were released to a relative.

Martin R. Clark, patrol agent in charge of the Eagle Pass South station, lauded agents’ efforts in seizing the large load of cocaine.

“This is a huge seizure and definitely a significant blow to the criminal organization that attempted to smuggle cocaine through our checkpoint,” Clark noted. “It highlights the scope and size of the criminal element that we face daily. I am proud of the agents who effected this arrest and commend them on a job well done.”

Read more by HS News Staff →

The American Immigration Council strongly condemns last week’s ruling from the Board of Immigration Appeals holding that immigrants arrested without a warrant are not entitled to certain Miranda-like warnings prior to questioning by immigration officers.  In a precedent decision, the Board held that noncitizens need not be informed of their right to counsel or warned that their statements can be used against them until after they have been placed in formal deportation proceedings.

For decades, immigrants placed under arrest have been entitled to these critical advisals.  Like “Miranda” warnings for criminal suspects, such notifications help to ensure that statements made during questioning are not the product of coercion.  As a result of last week’s ruling, noncitizens under arrest will now be even more vulnerable to pressure from interrogating officers, and immigration judges will face greater difficulty determining whether statements made during questioning were truly voluntary.

“This decision epitomizes the substandard system of justice that’s been created and imposed on immigrants in the United States,” said Melissa Crow, Director of the American Immigration Council’s Legal Action Center.  “The Board’s ruling renders the advisals practically meaningless and makes immigrants less likely to remain silent when questioned and less likely to assert their right to counsel.”

The August 11, 2011 ruling stated that “Until an alien who is arrested without a warrant is placed in formal proceedings by the filing of a Notice to Appear (Form I-862), the regulation at 8 C.F.R. § 287.3(c) (2011) does not require immigration officers to advise the alien that he or she has a right to counsel and that any statements made during interrogation can subsequently be used against the alien.”

The Board of Immigration Appeals is the highest administrative tribunal on immigration and nationality matters in the United States.  Decisions of the Board may be subject to review by federal courts or by the Attorney General.

Read more by HS News Staff →

Melanne Verveer, Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues, will travel to Mexico City, Mexico August 16-19 to promote bilateral engagement on women’s economic empowerment and political participation, as well as challenges women face on key societal issues like citizen safety.

On August 17, she will deliver the keynote address at the Mexican publisher Expansion Group’s event “50 Most Powerful Businesswomen in Mexico,” highlighting the role of women in driving economic growth. While in Mexico, Ambassador Verveer will also meet with government, civil society, and business leaders to exchange views on the economic, political, cultural, and social situation of women in Mexico and the United States.

Read more by HS News Staff →