Mexican drug lord Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada was tricked by the son of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman and forced to board a plane bound for the United States last month, he said in a statement on Saturday.
The statement distributed by Zambada's lawyer provides the drug lord's version of how U.S. authorities were able to capture both Zambada, co-founder of the Sinaloa Cartel, and Joaquin Guzman Lopez, who is believed to have headed another faction of the criminal group, outside El Paso, Texas.
Zambada said he was "ambushed" during what was supposed to be a meeting with Guzman Lopez and Sinaloa state officials including Governor Ruben Rocha and Hector Cuen, who had recently been elected as federal lawmaker for the upcoming congressional period.
The state government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Zambada said he first saw Cuen at a ranch outside of state capital Culiacan, and then Guzman Lopez, "whom I have known since he was a young boy, and he gestured for me to follow him."
Zambada said he followed Guzman Lopez, "trusting the nature of the meeting and the people involved," and was led into a dark room.
Authorities say the two main factions of the Sinaloa Cartel, one headed by Zambada and the other headed by El Chapo's sons, have at times had a rocky relationship since El Chapo's 2016 capture.
Zambada said once he entered the room, he was knocked to the ground by a group of men, tied up and had a hood placed over his head. He was taken in the back of a pick-up truck to a nearby landing strip where a plane waited.
Guzman Lopez bound Zambada with zip ties to a seat and the plane left for the United States carrying just the two men and the pilot, Zambada said.
The Guzman family lawyer has repeatedly denied that Zambada was forcibly taken, and instead called it a voluntary surrender after extended negotiations between the drug traffickers and the U.S. government.
The U.S., through its embassy in Mexico, said on Friday that Guzman Lopez surrendered voluntarily, though it seemed Zambada had been taken against his will.
In the statement, Zambada also said Cuen was killed when the drug lord was taken, and that a state police officer and bodyguard accompanying Zambada had not been seen since.
Sinaloa authorities previously said that Cuen was believed to be killed in a carjacking at a gas station in Culiacan.
Both Zambada and Guzman Lopez have pleaded not guilty to drug-trafficking charges in U.S. court.
Venezuela's supreme court on Saturday said that it had not received evidence from the opposition coalition in the disputed July 28 presidential elections and warned that its decision in determining the winner would be final.
The South American nation's elections authority, which the opposition claims is loyal to President Nicolas Maduro, declared the leader had won re-election, while the opposition argues its candidate, Edmundo Gonzalez, won.
The electoral authority has not released a detailed vote count from the elections and its website has been down since the early hours of July 29.
The opposition has posted its ballot count online, which shows Gonzalez receiving double the number of votes as Maduro.
In Venezuela, voting machines print out three copies of voting records for the electoral authority, the ruling party and its challenger.
Maduro appealed to the supreme court last week to verify the electoral results, leading the court to summon all candidates who had run.
Gonzalez did not attend, saying he would be at risk of arrest if he went. Members of the opposition who did go pressured the electoral authority to release its ballots, and the coalition has previously said it has its ballots locked up for safekeeping.
"The members of the Unitary Platform (opposition coalition) did not submit any electoral material" to the court, Chief Justice Caryslia Rodriguez told journalists and diplomats on Saturday.
The court did receive Maduro and the electoral body's vote counts, Rodriguez said.
The justice said that once the election investigation was concluded, the court's ruling would be "unappealable and compliance will be mandatory."
Brazil, Colombia and Mexico published a joint statement on Thursday urging the electoral body to publicly present a detailed vote count and said that the supreme court was not a solution to the matter.
Other Latin American nations, as well as the United States, have rejected Maduro's win. Ally nations Russia and China have congratulated him.
According to a recent report, around half of OECD countries are earning less now than they had before the pandemic.
As Statista's Katharine Buchholz reports, when considering hourly real wages - wages adjusted for inflation - people in the United States, Canada, Japan, Australia and many European countries now have less money at their disposal than roughly four years ago. No data was published for Turkey, Chile and Colombia.
While the pandemic caused issues for some industries, others also started paying workers more as they wound up being in short supply due to the upheavals to employment Covid-19 caused. After the invasion of Ukraine by Russia in early 2022, most workers around the world took a hit to their real wages as inflation was running hot in many countries, causing price increases to effectively outweigh any potential wage growth.
Finland, Italy, the Czech Republic, Sweden and New Zealand were hardest hit by this phenomenon according to the OECD Employment Outlook 2024, seeing real wages decrease by more than 5%. Sweden saw wages dwindle most, by 7.5%. The country is known for relatively low real wages compared to its pricy standard of living—pay is 11% lower than in neighboring Denmark and 16-20% lower than in Germany, the Netherlands or Norway. Trade unions negotiate a majority contracts in the country that has placed a focus on equality, but like in many European nations, collective bargaining has become more contentious. In this context, observers have even referred to a "lost decade" for Swedish wages.
The United States fared better than others as real wages were just 0.8% lower in Q1 of 2024 than in Q4 of 2019. Neighbor Canada lost 2.4% of hourly real wages in roughly the same time period, while the loss was even more severe in Australia at 4.8%. The University of Sydney comments that a departure from collective bargaining and a decrease in manufacturing have affected the jobs that used to be peak performers for wage growth in the country.
In a move that should outrage every American, Minnesota governor Tim Walz, who is now Kamala Harris' running mate, recently signed into lawthe Pro Act, a bill that allows babies born alive to be left to die if the child survived an abortion attempt. This legislation, now law in Minnesota, represents a level of barbarism that should have no place in a civilized society.
Some will claim this is an overstatement. However, eight infants born alive have already been lost to post-birth abortion -- bald-faced infanticide.
This barbaric policy is a brutal reality where newborns who survive attempted abortions. Abortion is unethical to start with, as the purpose of medicine is to heal and maintain the health of the patient -- every ethical doctor knows a pregnant woman represents two patients. Abortion neither heals nor maintains the health of either patient, stopping the healthy function of the woman’s reproductive system and snatching life itself away from the baby.
Allowing a baby born alive to die is unethical on a whole other level. Every physician is bound by a “duty to care,” ethically and legally. It is always wrong (and often illegal) for a doctor to refuse care, especially to a patient who will die without said care. Any doctor who allows a baby born alive to die should have their license revoked immediately and be sued for malpractice by the family.
Amazingly, stadiums are filled with people cheering for Harris and Walz as they advocate these extreme policies. Their supporters blindly applaud policies like partial-birth and post-birth abortion.
They cheer as Harris and Walz discuss policies that promote the termination of life at its most vulnerable stage. As horrific as America's abortion landscape has been, the Harris-Walz ticket promises to take our culture further into moral decay.
It is not just Minnesota where such barbaric policies are being championed. Former Virginia governor Ralph Northam showed support for similar measures, saying "The infant would be delivered. The infant would be kept comfortable. The infant would be resuscitated if that's what the mother and the family desired," meaning you can just let it die before your eyes if you so choose.
This clash of civilizations between the values of life and the barbarism of the Harris-Walz agenda is stark, to say the least. But our elected representatives are under-prepared to solve this massive issue. The Right only talks about abortion in terms of arbitrary gestational age restrictions, while the Left hammers the campaign trail with the rhetoric, “You’ll lose your rights unless we have abortion on demand!” The Left knows that the fear of loss is more powerful than vain debates on when we should start protecting human beings -- which is how they keep winning elections.
The nation needs pro-life statesmen. These men and women need to understand that all people are equally valuable, from conception until natural death -- whether in an IVF clinic’s freezer, a woman’s womb, or on their deathbed -- deserving of blessing and protection. Then they must have the resolve to stand in front of the barbaric horde of radical pro-abortion extremists, exposing the evil of abortion, and say, “If you want to hurt those women and babies, you’re going to have to go through me.”
Jim Harden is the CEO of CompassCare, a pro-life pregnancy center organization that provides support and resources for women facing unplanned pregnancies. CompassCare advocates for the protection of all human life from conception to natural death.
So after three years of playing "border czar," or as she insists, looking for all those 'root causes' as to why migrants are pouring in over our open borders, she's suddenly telling her adoring crowds she's all in for tough border enforcement.
Here's her ad:
The old gal reads the polls, of course, and knows what voters want to hear ... which isn't what they've been hearing from the Harris-Biden administration.
"So I was attorney-general of a border state. I went after trans-national gangs -- the drug cartels, and human traffickers. I prosecuted them -- in case after case. And I won. So I know what I'm talking about. We know our immigration system is broken, and we know what it takes to fix it: Comprehensive reform, that includes strong border security and an earned pathway to citizenship."
Which doesn't sound terribly serious, let alone what voters are looking for.
This analyst doesn't think anyone's going to believe her:
How is it a pathway to citizenship for people who crossed into the U.S. illegally going to disincentize the desire of millions to come over without papers?
Holding out citizenship to these lawbreakers is to reward the lawbreaking. After all, if you can come illegally and get a plethora of benefits even legal immigrants don't get, with a U.S. passport at the end of the rainbow, why would you do it any different?
It's astonishing how little she understands of human incentive, creating huge incentives to come to the states illegally and keep the surge going.
In other parts of her speech, she's talked of "hiring" more Border Patrol agents, which is hardly a solution to the surge given that Border Patrol agents are not allowed to do their jobs, but must serve as Wal-Mart-style greeters to incoming foreigners without papers or vetting, "processing" these migrants instead of sending them back.
More agents, more processors, and as any retailer can tell you, when you open up extra checkout lanes, you get more customers in line buying.
We thought she spent time on studying why people immigrate illegally.
As any of her departed aides can say, she doesn't do her homework.
She also claims she will sign the recent failed border bill as if Joe Biden somehow refused to. Of course, she's trying to claim President Trump was the culprit, but he was not in office when this travesty, which normalizes the current border surge with 5,000 "free" illegal crossings per day, and everything subject to a president's whims, was hatched in the Senate.
But that's probably not what this is about.
Harris is an appointed creature loyal to her big anonymous campaign donors who knows that she wouldn't be where she is were it not for them wanting her to be there as their obedient puppet.
Their agenda is open immigration with an utterly devalued U.S. citizenship open to all comers, the better to cut America down a peg.
They also seek warm bodies to fill slots for Democrat congressional districts depleted of people owing to flight to red states. All that flight to red states normally cuts congressional representation to failed districts, but not if illegals can take their place, voting or not.
And while a lot of them are voting, a lot are just generating ballots by their residency in junk-mail voting states where every resident gets a mail-in ballot, asked for or not. Someone gets hold of the ballots in the trash, or on the return from a slightly errant address, and fills those ballots out for them.
Guess which side does that?
And now that every border surger gets to be a U.S. citizen, why would someone like Kamala Harris change that situation? Everyone -- Democrat ruling elites, Democrat donors, and illegals -- win.
The only people who lose are the American people, including those who are too dumb to recognize this dynamic as driving the higher taxes they pay, the two-tier justice they witness, the falling wages, the reduced access to city services, the bankrupt hospitals, the soaring crime, and the jobs lost.
Kamala Harris is trying mightily to conceal her leftist agenda as she campaigns pretending to be a moderate. But her record is so visible, so bad, and so dangerous one can only hope the voters can see through it. She speaks with forked tongue, trying to claim she'd be tough on border security while incentivizing illegal immigration more than it already is. She's always been a phony.
Amnesty Kamala's presidency, should she win it, would be a disaster.
A surprising therapy is showing promise for chronic pain, vision loss, and muscle recovery, among other conditions.
It's not a pill, an injection, or surgery.
It's light.
Yes, light. The thing that appears when you open the curtains, flip a switch, or strike a match.
Light illuminates our world and helps us see. Early human trials suggest it may help us heal in new ways as well.
"Phototherapy is still in its infancy," said Mohab Ibrahim, MD, PhD, a professor of anesthesiology at the University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, who studies the effects of light on chronic pain. "There are so many questions, a lot of things we do not understand yet. But that's where it gets interesting. What we can conclude is that different colors of light can influence different biological functions."
This growing field goes by several names. Light therapy. Phototherapy. Photobiomodulation.
It leverages known effects of light on human health — such as skin exposure to ultraviolet light producing vitamin D or blue light's power to regulate human body clocks — to take light as medicine in surprising new directions.
New Science, Old Idea
The science is young, but the concept of using light to restore health is thousands of years old.
Hippocrates prescribed sunbathing to patients at his medical center on the Greek island of Kos in 400 BC. Florence Nightingale promoted sunshine, along with fresh air, as prerequisites for recovery in hospitals during the Civil War. A Danish doctor, Niels Finsen, won the Nobel Prize in 1903 for developing ultraviolet lamps to treat a tuberculosis-related skin condition. And worried parents of the 1930s sat their babies in front of mercury arc lamps, bought at the drugstore, to discourage rickets.
Today, light therapy is widely used in medicine for newborn jaundice, psoriasis, and seasonal affective disorder and in light-activated treatments for cancers of the esophagus and lungs, as well as for actinic keratosis, a skin condition that can lead to cancer.
But researchers are finding that light may be capable of far more, particularly in conditions with few treatment options or where available drugs have unwanted side effects.
How Red Light Could Restore Vision
When 100 midlife and older adults, aged 53-91, with the dry form of age-related macular degeneration (AMD) were treated with an experimental red-light therapy or a sham therapy, the light treatment group showed signs of improved vision, as measured on a standard eye chart.
Volunteers received the therapy three times a week for 3-5 weeks, every 4 months for 2 years. By the study's end, 67% of those treated with light could read an additional five letters on the chart, and 20% could read 10 or more. About 7% developed geographic atrophy — the most advanced, vision-threatening stage of dry AMD — compared with 24% in the sham group.
The study, called LIGHTSITE III, was conducted at 10 ophthalmology centers across the United States and published in March in the journal Retina. The device they used — the Valeda Light Delivery System from medical device company LumiThera — is available in Europe and now being reviewed by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
LumiThera's Valeda Light Delivery System (which is CE Marked in the EU and available in select countries in Latin America, but not cleared by the FDA) is being studied for the treatment of dry AMD and other ocular diseases.
Exposure to red light at the wavelengths used in the study likely revitalizes failing mitochondria — the power plants inside cells — so they produce more energy, the researchers say.
"This is the first therapy for dry AMD that's actually shown a benefit in improving vision," said study co-author Richard Rosen, MD, chair of ophthalmology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and chief of Retinal Services at the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary in New York City. "Supplements called AREDS can reduce progression, and in wet AMD we can improve vision loss with injections. But in dry AMD, none of the treatments studied in the past have improved it."
AMD develops when the eyes can't break down natural by-products, which glom together as clumps of protein called drusen. Drusen can lodge under the retina, eventually damaging tissue.
"Retinal epithelial cells, a single layer of cells that cares for the photoreceptors in the eyes, are there for life," Rosen said. "They have a tremendous capacity to repair themselves, but things [such as aging and smoking] get in the way."
"I'm proposing," Rosen said, "that by boosting energy levels in cells [with red light], we're improving normal repair mechanisms."
Lab studies support this idea.
In a 2017 mouse study from the University College London Institute of Ophthalmology, London, England, retinal function improved by 25% in old mice exposed to red light. And a 2019 study from the Ophthalmological Research Foundation, Oviedo, Spain, found that exposure to blue light harmed the mitochondria in retina cells, while red light somewhat counteracted the losses.
If cleared by the FDA — which the company anticipated could happen this year — LumiThera's light delivery device will likely be most useful in the beginning stages of dry AMD, Rosen said. "I think treatment of early dry AMD will be huge."
Eventually, light therapy may also be valuable in treating or managing glaucoma and diabetic retinopathy.
For now, Rosen recommended that clinicians and consumers with AMD skip over-the-counter (OTC) red-light therapy devices currently on the market.
"We don't know what kind of light the devices produce," he said. "The wavelengths can vary. The eyes are delicate. Experimenting on your own may be hazardous to your vision."
Green Light for Pain Relief
On his way to the pharmacy to pick up pain relievers for a headache, Ibrahim passed Gene C. Reid Park, Tucson, Arizona. Recalling how his brother eased headaches by sitting in his backyard, Ibrahim pulled over.
"Reid Park is probably one of the greenest areas of Tucson," said Ibrahim, the University of Arizona anesthesiologist, who also serves as medical director of the Comprehensive Center for Pain & Addiction at Banner-University Medical Center Phoenix, Phoenix, Arizona. "I spent a half hour or 40 minutes there, and my headache felt better."
Being outdoors in a green space may be soothing for lots of reasons, like the quiet or the fresh air. But there's also sunlight reflected off and shining through greenery. The experience inspired Ibrahim to take a closer look at the effects of green light on chronic pain.
In his 2021 study of 29 people with migraines, participants reported that after daily exposure to green light for 10 weeks, the number of days per month when they had headaches fell from 7.9 to 2.4 for those who had episodic migraines and from 22.3 to 9.4 for those with chronic migraines. In another 2021 study, 21 people with fibromyalgia who had green light therapy for 10 weeks said their average, self-reported pain intensity fell from 8.4 to 4.9 on a 10-point scale used at the University of Arizona's pain clinic.
Volunteers in both studies got their light therapy at home, switching on green LED lights while they listened to music, read a book, relaxed, or exercised for 1 or 2 hours daily. The lights were within their field of vision, but they did not look directly at them.
Basking in green light for an hour or two a day could significantly help relieve pain from migraines and fibromyalgia, according to University of Arizona research.
Ibrahim now has funding from the US Department of Defense and Department of Veterans Affairs to find out why green light alters pain perception.
"What we know is that the visual system is connected to certain areas of the brain that also modulate pain," he said. "We are trying to understand the connection."
Padma Gulur, MD, a professor of anesthesiology and population health and director of Pain Management Strategy and Opioid Surveillance at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, saw similar results in a 2023 study of 45 people with fibromyalgia. But instead of using a light source, volunteers wore glasses with clear, green, or blue lenses for 4 hours a day.
After 2 weeks, 33% in the green lens group reduced their use of opioids by 10% or more, compared with 11% in the blue lens group and 8% who wore clear lenses. Previous studies have found green light affects levels of the feel-good brain chemical serotonin and stimulates the body's own opioid system, the authors noted.
"Green light helps your body control and reduce pain," Gulur said. It "seems to help with pain relief by affecting the body's natural pain management system. This effect appears to play a crucial role in antinociception — reducing the sensation of pain; antiallodynia — preventing normal, non-painful stimuli from causing pain; and antihyperalgesia — reducing heightened sensitivity to pain."
Light therapy could help pain patients reduce their dose of opioids or even forgo the drugs altogether, Gulur said. "It is our hope this will become a useful adjuvant therapy to manage pain."
In the University of Arizona studies, some patients on green-light therapy stopped their medications completely. Even if they didn't, other benefits appeared. "They had improved quality of life, decreased depression and anxiety, and improved sleep," Ibrahim said.
But not just any green light or green-tinted glasses will work, both researchers said. "We have found there are specific frequencies of green light that give this benefit," Gulur said. "OTC products may not be helpful for that reason."
While Ibrahim said it could be possible for healthcare practitioners and consumers to consult his studies and put together an inexpensive green-light device at home while carefully following the protocol participants used in the studies , it would first be a good idea for patients to talk with their family doctor or a pain specialist.
"A headache is not always just a headache," Ibrahim said. "It could be some other abnormality that needs diagnosis and treatment. If you have long-lasting pain or pain that's getting worse, it's always better to discuss it with your physician."
Helping Muscles Recover With Red Light
Intense exercise — whether it's a sprint at the end of a morning run, an extra set of biceps curls, or a weekend of all-day DIY home improvement projects — can temporarily damage muscle, causing soreness, inflammation, and even swelling. Phototherapy with red and near-infrared light is widely used by sports trainers, physical therapists, and athletes to aid in recovery. It may even work better than a trendy plunge in an ice bath, according to a 2019 Texas State University review.
But how does it work? Jamie Ghigiarelli, PhD, professor of Allied Health & Kinesiology at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York, looked closely at signs of inflammation and muscle damage in 12 athletes to find out.
Study participants overtaxed their muscles with rounds of chin-ups, high-speed sprints, and repeated bench presses. Afterward, they relaxed in a full-body red-light therapy bed or in a similar bed without lights.
The results, published in 2020, showed that blood levels of creatine kinase — an enzyme that's elevated by muscle damage — were 18% lower 1-3 days after exercising for the light-bed group than for the control group.
"Photobiomodulation seems to help with muscle recovery," Ghigiarelli said.
Red light at wavelengths from 650 to 820 nm can enter muscle cells, where it is absorbed by mitochondria and boosts their energy production, he said. At the time of his research, some exercise science researchers and athletes thought using light therapy before an event might also increase athletic performance, but according to Ghigiarelli, that use has not panned out.
Handheld red light and near-infrared light devices for muscle recovery are widely available, but it's important to do your homework before buying one.
"You want to choose a device with the right energy production — the right wavelength of light, the right power — to be safe and effective," he said.
For details, he recommends consulting a 2019 paper in the Brazilian Journal of Physical Therapy called "Clinical and scientific recommendations for the use of photobiomodulation therapy in exercise performance enhancement and post-exercise recovery: Current evidence and future directions."
The paper, from the Laboratory of Phototherapy and Innovative Technologies in Health at the Universidade Nove de Julho in Sao Paulo, Brazil, recommends that for small muscle groups like the biceps or triceps, use red-light lasers or LED devices with a wavelength of 640 nm for red light or 950 nm for infrared light, at a power of 50-200 mW per diode for single-probe device types, at a dose of 20-60 J, given 5-10 minutes after exercise.
As 20% of Californiasuffers in poverty amidsoaring power bills, soaring homelessness, businesses fleeing the state, and sky-high taxes,one might expect the state’s leadership to focus on solutions. Instead, Governor Gavin Newsom has taken a rather unconventional approach:hiring a celebrity photographer, Charles Ommanney, with a $200,000 annual salary to enhance his public image.
Yes, you read that right. In a state where many struggle to make ends meet, Newsom has brought on board a photographer known for capturing the likes of Mark Zuckerberg, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama. Ommanney’s task? To ensure that the governor is photographed in his most flattering light, whether it's wearing aviator sunglasses while picking up trash from a homeless encampment or surveying wildfire damage in designer workwear.
This new role, which was quietly created and filled without the usual fanfare, is particularly egregious amid the backdrop of California’s economic struggles. With Ommanney now a full-time member of the governor’s team, his photos aren’t just about documenting events—they’re about crafting a carefully curated image of Newsom as a hands-on leader, Politico reports.
And while residents suffer, their governor is ramping up his meticulously polished persona, perhaps with an eye on the national stage. Earlier this year, instead of delivering the traditional State of the State address, Newsom’s office produced a glossy video, complete with dramatic visuals—some of which were shot by Ommanney—highlighting national issues over local crises.
Izzy Gardon, a spokesperson for Newsom, defended the hire.
"Charles plays an instrumental role in communicating the work of state government across visual platforms — including social media, helping us meet Californians where they are at."
Yet, it’s hard to overlook the absurdity of this situation: a governor who earns $234,101 annually is paying a photographer nearly as much to follow him around the state, capturing photos that are, in essence, taxpayer-funded PR.
In a time when California's residents need real solutions and tangible action, the governor's decision to prioritize a high-priced image consultant raises more than a few eyebrows. For a state in dire need of economic revival, the focus on optics over substance is a bitter pill to swallow.
