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Job trainings, burial scams proliferate during the pandemic
Consumer fraud is a shape-shifting demon that follows the headlines to target its prey, whether affluent or newly impoverished, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. That was the key message from experts and consumer advocates speaking at a recent Federal Trade Commission Zoom conference for media and community stakeholders. The number of scams hasn’t increased because […]
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First-time voter Sophia Policarpio: Thrilled, independent, undecided
By Cristina DC Pastor There are two things that get Sophia Policarpio excited and anxious at the same time: Being an incoming freshman at Stony Brook University and a first-time voter in the November 3rd elections. On turning 18, she registered to vote in her East Hills neighborhood in Long Island, thrilled at the thought […]
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Preparing for your family’s future while in a hospital fighting COVID-19
By Janice V. Arellano, Esq. When Robina Araullo started getting a dry, itchy throat, the alarm went off: Could she be infected with the Coronavirus? Panic set in when she tested positive several days later. From that moment on, her days were spent taking medications to keep her body from shaking, looking for hospitals, and […]
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Howard Hoffman is CEO of first Filipino-owned cannabis company
By Cristina DC Pastor Howard Hoffman took a different path to the top. The CEO of Complete Hemp founded his first business at 13 years old, then dropped out of college. He recalled a conversation that would change the course of his life. He asked a teacher, who was then lecturing about becoming rich, if […]
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28M renters face evictions
An estimated 28 million renters in the U.S. are facing evictions as states begin lifting their COVID-19-related eviction moratoriums in the coming months. In April, most U.S. states imposed some manner of lockdown to control the spread of the virus, restricting most workers to their homes. Unemployment rates shot to 14.7 percent, according to the […]
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The Conways: A Filipino American family
By Cristina DC Pastor They’re not the Conners where the head of the family, Dan, works as a contractor, and his wife Roseanne ran a diner in a fictional working-class suburb called Lanford in Illinois. We are talking about the Conways where the head of the family, George, is a high-powered Manhattan lawyer, and his […]
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What I’ve learned from staying home and living in dread of a pandemic
When my parents needed to teach me a lesson, it usually began with, “Nung panahon ng Hapon…” as they recounted what were unspeakable hardships during the three years Japan had occupied the Philippines. They hid in bunkers, divided a piece of fish among 10 siblings, and feared neighbors with paper bags over their heads. Some […]
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The best masks: Comfort over style
With health authorities continuing to urge face-covering in public to curb the spread of COVID-19, we’ve become familiar with the minor irritants of wearing masks: chafed ears, foggy glasses, snapped straps. The arrival of summer takes the potential discomfort up a notch, trapping sweat and heat under our facial sheaths. Keeping your face covered when […]
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My beautiful biracial ‘apos’
By Laura Garcia, DNP, RN It fascinates me, sometimes, when my daughter Teza styles my granddaughter Layla’s thick, frizzy hair. Teza lovingly applies an assortment of oil and hair creams to the hair, brushes it in long strokes, and gathers it into a ponytail. Most often, though, she just let Layla’s hair hang loose and drop into […]