by Matthew Ruiz

El Chapo – otherwise known as “Joaquín Archivaldo Guzmán Loera” – is a Mexican drug lord who is the world’s most notorious drug lord since Pablo Escobar’s empire was run down.

El Chapo was born on April 4th, 1957 and is currently 61 years of age. He has thirteen children and has been married to Emma Coronel Aispuro since 2007.

Chapo – as of right now – “has been captured three times.” His second escape from federal watch was back on January 19th, 2001.

“With help from bribed guards – one identified as Francisco Cambrios Riviera – they opened El Chapo’s door,” according to The New York Times.

His last escape, which went viral on social media – as even rap artist 2 Chainz made a song titled “El Chapo Jr” about it – is easily his most famous.

“On July 11th, 2015, Chapo escaped through tunnels under Mexico’s top security prison with help from his wife –  Emma Coronel Aispuro,” stated Mexico News Daily.

Chapo went into trial for transporting drugs to the US. He has been in trial for the past three months in New York, being exposed for his inner sprawl cartel. This trial has ended the rain of the kingpin known as El Chapo.

“As Judge Brian M. Cogan read the jury’s charge sheet in open court, ten straight guilty verdicts on all ten counts of the indictment. Mr. Guzmán sat listening to a translator, looking stunned,” reported The NY Times.

The jury’s decision took a week to come up with the official verdict. Chapo is now facing life in prison at his sentence hearing scheduled for June 25th, were he will be sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole.

Authorities are now getting El Chapo’s sons involved as well.

“A week after the conclusion of the three-month trial of ‘El Chapo,’ two of his sons were indicted yesterday on drug conspiracy charges by the United States Justice Department,” stated CNN.

Joaquín Guzmán López, 34, and Ovidio Guzmán López, 28, are being accused for importing cocaine, methamphetamine, and weed to the United States. Chapo’s sons have been found guilty and are said to have been importing these drugs since 2008.

El Chapo’s lawyers are now fighting for a retrial, stating that there was alleged jury misconduct.

“Attorney Eduardo Balarezo, in a letter Friday, informed US District Judge Brian Cogan of the defense team’s intention to file a motion for a new trial. He cited a Vice News report this week that quoted an unnamed juror who said several panel members followed media accounts despite the judge’s instructions to ‘stay away’ from media coverage,” stated CNN. 

Ultimately, the evidence is against Chapo and is clear, so it is extremely unlikely he will be freed of his rich and alarming past actions.

 

by Nikolas Molina

Social media images surfaced last week of teenagers performing the Nazi salute at a party in Newport Beach, California while gathering around red plastic cups arranged in the shape of a swastika.

The party this Nazi salute took place was at a Newport District High School party.

According to The Los Angeles Times, the Newport School District will cooperate with law enforcement to identify each of the students in the images. The pictures first surfaced on Saturday night all over social media. People reposted it and attempted to make it go viral so that the students could be punished.

“We were recently made aware of social media postings involving some students who created inappropriate Anti-Semitic symbols, and possible underage drinking,” the schools’ spokeswoman stated.

“While these actions did not occur on any school campus or school function, we condemn all acts of Anti-Semitism and hate in all their forms,” she continued.

Other pictures surfaced from that night of students toasting over the swastika made from red solo cups that had a caption on the picture that stated “ultimate rage.” Another picture that surfaced was a picture of the swastika and the caption read “German rage cage.”

According to The Washington Post, a report from the ADL (Anti-Defamation League), incidents of Anti-Semitism in the United States went up 57 percent between 2016 and 2017 and the dramatic rise is largely attributed to a “significant increase” in cases in schools or on college campuses.

“I am appalled that Nazism is still present in today’s society,” said Nicholas Guggiana, a senior at St. John Bosco High School.

Personally, I do not think that any form of hate should still be prevalent in today’s society. Generations in the past have fought way too hard for equality, have had too many wars, and have been discriminated more than enough times to have acts of hate still existing.

“I think that it is immaturity at its finest, and that the youth of society does not respect the 6 million plus Jewish lives that were lost during the Holocaust,” said Derek Delgado, also a senior at Bosco.

These students were fully aware of what they were doing. Some may say it was a joke, but when 6 million lives are being mocked, there is nothing to joke about.

 

by Joshua Adoh

The Deepfake phenomenon is a great technological advancement and can even be seen as an evolution in cintimatic effects, however the application of this technological advancement can be quite alarming, being named the internet’s most latest moral crisis.

For those of you who do not understand the concept of the “Deepfake,” they are videos manufactured by artificial intelligence in order to make people appear to say or do things they did not do in the original video. 

Deepfake has been around for sometime now. The artificial intelligence of this software has the capabilities to affect our society negatively as well as foreign affairs. This high-tech deception technology was first spotted and reported in December 2017 in the technical and scientific section of the magazine Vice. Following this incident, a widespread bunch of fabricated videos were created of celebrities from websites to magazines.

According to AINews (Artificial Intelligence News), one of President Trump’s speeches was the first Deepfake video to be televised and it can be understood that it will not be the last.

“The station, Q13, broadcasted a doctored Trump speech in which he somehow appeared even more orange and pulled amusing faces. You can see a side-by-side comparison to the original video,” stated AINews.

The employee stationed at Q13 was found and apprehended, yet it is still unclear who created the clip and how it was allowed to air. There is a questions regarding this phenomenon: How will this technology influence our society as well as foreign decisions?

“Just five percent of Americans have ‘a lot of trust’ in the information they get from social media. This is much lower than in national and local news organizations,” according to Pew Research.

This is not the first time and will not be the last we have hear of these ‘sophisticated disinformation campaigns,’ which at one point in time the US was the main creator and influencer of these campaigns. Russia has been linked to these campaigns as well with their infamous Twitter Bots.

With this new ‘copy and paste’ video technology, it is not far-fetched to see an increased number of fabricated videos that seem like they are from reliable sources. These ‘trusted’ outlets of information together with the combined help of the subtle yet powerful influence of social media can cause an uproar of epic proportions.  

Deepfake is also affecting celebrities’ reputation. As you can imagine, this kind of publicity can be rather unflattering and offensive to rising and or plateaued celebrities. These realistic face-swaps are relatively easy to use and has created a community on Reddit, where creators can compare and swap notes of their latest projects.

Although these Deepfake videos are seen as funny and amusing now, if they begin to harm and artificially corrupt Trump and other major figures, these videos may not be so harmless.