LOS ANGELES – Mayor Eric Garcetti formally introduced his plan to boost the city’s minimum wage to $13.25 an hour by 2017. In his remarks at a Labor Day rally in Exposition Park, Garcetti touted the plan as “the largest anti-poverty program in this city’s history.” As reported last week, the city’s minimum wage –…
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A new outdoor music festival in downtown Los Angeles reflected the city’s diversity with a lineup that included rap, rock, punk, blues and Latin music. Kanye West, Cypress Hill, Weezer, Rise Against, John Mayer and Juanes were among Sunday’s performers. “This whole place is full of good, loving people,” Mayer told…
Supporters Hail Victory for Bipartisanship, Economy and California Taxpayers San Diego – Last Friday, after hearing arguments from both sides in the lawsuit aimed at blocking California’s new Prevailing Wage Law (SB7), San Diego Superior Court Judge Joel R. Wohlfeil affirmed his August 28th ruling upholding SB7. SB7 is a bipartisan law enacted in 2013…
IT’S not easy to become a priest. Although I know this first-hand, it became clearer to me this week while listening to seminarians share their struggles of priestly formation. One seminarian spoke about his continuous experience of being “broken” in his calling. Coming from a poor immigrant family, he worked hard to finish college to…
ON August 19, former president Fidel Ramos revealed in ANC’s Beyond Politics that there have been intelligence reports concerning the training of about 100 Filipino Muslims in Iraq to become jihadists. “The report has been reaching some of us who re retired people who are knowledgeable about Mindanao is that at least 100 of our…
ELECTED Congressman of Saranggani. Boxer in training for his next fight. PBA Coach. Entertainer. Husband and father. And now—Manny Pacquiao will be training professional boxers in China. Yes. The same country that the Philippines has a territorial dispute with in the West Philippine Sea, and has been deemed to be “bullying” the Philippines and other…
Confusing the enemy is an established tactic in warfare. Sun Tsu’s Art of War and Nicolo Machiavelli’s The Prince mentioned this as one effective means of making the enemy off-balance and vulnerable. Going by recent public pronouncements and “slips of the tongue,” coming out in media, one wonders if the Liberal Party’s strategists are applying…
The IRS issued new guidance requiring individuals with an interest in a “specified foreign financial asset” to attach a disclosure statement to their income tax return for any year in which the aggregate value of all such assets exceeds $50,000. Use new form Form 8938 (Statement of Specified Foreign Financial Assets) starting in 2011. Q….
CLIENT is 60 years old and married. She has gross income of $3,000 as a caregiver. Husband is not employed and waiting for social security benefits, which is still two years from now. Due to a car that was repossessed last year, client owes $18,000 on a car loan deficiency. Her salary is subject to…
ARE you being harassed by your creditors day and night due to unpaid bills? If you are, you know that this is a pretty unpleasant experience. You may feel scared, angry or embarrassed about your situation. The prospect of debt relief through bankruptcy may sound appealing to you but you are not quite sure if…
Q: I WORK in a hospital on 12-hour shifts. During my meal break, I sometimes go to our break lounge to take a nap. My supervisor told me sleeping is forbidden. Since it is my 30-minute meal break, I feel that I should be able to spend it however I want. What are my rights?…
ARTISTS are those few anywhere whose gifts set them apart; who by talent and wisdom and integrity are superior. As of late, at the Ford Theater Walt Disney Concert Hall and Artani Theater, they flourished, as we watched them make beauty, unlock mysteries, serve the truth, making life out of the matter of their visions….
Due to human’s innate nature in constantly striving to attain perfection and discover new methods and techniques to enhance their look, the continuing advent of the cosmetic business has tremendously increased in number that shrewd capitalists instantly found a gold mine in this thriving industry. Since its discovery thousands of years ago tracing back to…
LOS ANGELES – A fashion brand that uses banig, or hand-woven sleeping mats, for its fashion accessories is looking for help in recovering and rebuilding their facilities, and the lives of the Filipino weavers, embroiders, and artisans that comprise their company. When Typhoon Haiyan hit Central Philippines in 2013, a lot of families, communities, businesses and…
Filipino-American Assemblymember Rob Bonta’s innovative small business bill passed the leigslature with “strong bipartisan support” and now awaits the approval of Governor Jerry Brown. Bonta believes in the incredible importance of small businesses in the economy of California that led to the creation of AB 2719. “There are over 3.3 million small businesses in California,…
Plan calls for $13.25 an hour by 2017 LOS ANGELES – City mayor Eric Garcetti has reportedly been in talks with business groups to develop a plan to raise the city’s minimum wage to $13.25 by 2017. Currently, city’s minimum wage is at $9, which took effect statewide in July under AB10, signed by Gov….
US Immigration Law provides that certain unskilled workers are able to immigrate to the US based on employment. The “other workers” subcategory is for persons performing unskilled labor requiring less than 2 years training or experience, not of a temporary or seasonal nature. In order to be petitioned in this category, a labor certification and…
Consider this common factual situation. You are over 21 years old and your US citizen parent petitions you while you are inside the United States. Since this is a preference category, you have to wait many years for your priority date to be current. As the years go by, your petitioning parent dies which in…
In its annual report to Congress, the CIS Ombudsman (CIS OMB) issued a critical report on the way the USCIS has been handling and processing requests for humanitarian revalidation. They have also singled out the California Service Center’s Humanitarian Revalidation Unit for “special mention.” (Created in 2002 by Congress, the Office of the Citizenship and…
PHILIPPINE Senator Mary Grace Sonora Poe Llamanzares, commonly known as Grace Poe, will celebrate her 46th birthday on September 3. Born in Iloilo but abandoned by her biological mother at birth, she was adopted by the late King of Philippine Movies Fernando “FPJ” Poe Jr. and wife, actress Susan Roces. Sen. Poe was educated in…
What is DanceXercise? DanceXercise is a type of aerobic exercise in the form of dancing, either ballroom dancing or regular bodily movement executed to the tune of music, for cardiovascular fitness and mental health. DanceXercise, in all its form, has been popularized in the late sixties. It has gained wide acceptance, even in the medical…
Charles Vacca, 39, was teaching a harmless nine-year-old how to aim and shoot with an automatic weapon at the Last Stop outdoor shooting range in Arizona, where he works. “All right, go ahead and give me one shot,” he instructed, leveling the gun to the silhouette target a few feet ahead. No one predicted the…
AFTER the revelation brought upon by the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) or pork barrel controversy, there hasn’t been a more perfect time to call for greater and more meaningful participation and accountability of the government, particularly when it comes to how public resources are allocated. Some Filipinos strongly believe that pork barrel will still…
If you are active on social media or watch the news regularly, you must have already seen a lot of videos of people — ordinary folks and celebrities alike — taking on the ice bucket challenge. Former President George W. Bush did it, Kapamilya stars Anne Curtis, Newscaster Korina Sanchez, and many others have allowed…
Being from Tacloban, I’m understandably excited about the forthcoming visit of Pope Francis to my hometown in January 2015. That’s the good news. The bad news is that, according to Archbishop John Du of Palo, Leyte (the seat of the diocese to which Tacloban belongs), the Holy Father prefers not to have VIPs taking center…
CLIENT is 60 years old and married. She has gross income of $3,000 as a caregiver. Husband is not employed and waiting for social security benefits, which is still two years from now. Due to a car that was repossessed last year, client owes $18,000 on a car loan deficiency. Her salary is subject to…
JANIS McLean worked for the State of California as a deputy attorney general until she retired from service in 2010. She did not receive her final wages on her last day of employment or within 72 hours of that date. The correct amount of her wages for unused leave and vacation time were not transferred…
Filipinos have a way to, intentionally or not, give things a “Pinoy” touch. The O! My Gulay Recipe Book, distributed by the Department of Agriculture—Bureau of Agricultural Research, features winning culinary art discoveries from the O! My Gulay Cooking Contest held in 2007. Most of which are dishes originally from other countries but were given…
Reprinted with permission from New American Media. Original news report by Ngoc Nguyen. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Wilderness Act, federal legislation that was signed into law in 1964 to preserve America’s wild spaces. Through that landmark conservation law, 100 million acres of wilderness have been set aside for the public to…
It is not the kind of column one usually pursues. There was no edge to it, no compelling plot, no dynamic of change. It’s about a lot of dance lovers with bundles of accelerated energies, whirling, stomping and laughing, doing it right, doing it wrong, and doing it again. They flung themselves about with a guilt-free…
