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Tag: Sting

  • Sex trafficking sting in San Diego County frees 19 victims, leads to 10 Arrests

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    An officer talks with a sex trafficking victim. (File photo courtesy of the FBI)

    An anti-sex trafficking operation carried out by law enforcement agencies in San Diego, Chula Vista and National City earlier this month resulted in 10 arrests and the recovery of 19 alleged trafficking victims, it was announced Tuesday.

    Operation Home for the Holidays was conducted over a three-day period and involved undercover officers posing as sex buyers in order to encounter potential traffickers and trafficking victims.

    Those arrested during the operation include four men charged with pimping, pandering and violating a protective order, who face anywhere between six and 20 years in prison if convicted, according to the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office. Six others were issued misdemeanor citations for allegedly attempting to purchase sex.

    The 19 recovered individuals were offered support services, which the DA’s Office said will “help them escape and heal from exploitation and human trafficking.”

    Operation Home for the Holidays is an annual initiative conducted by the multi-agency San Diego Human Trafficking Task Force, which includes local, state and federal law enforcement agencies.

    California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta said in a statement that the operation “is a key part of our efforts to keep our communities safe for the holidays and all year round.”

    Similar operations are conducted throughout the year in San Diego County, including an annual operation held during Comic-Con weekend that resulted in 13 arrests and 10 victims recovered this year, and an operation conducted last month in National City and southern San Diego that led to the rescues of two minors.

    “The ugly truth is that sex trafficking remains a lucrative criminal industry fueled by demand that generating over $810 million a year in San Diego County,” District Atty Summer Stephan said.

    “I’m proud of our work with the San Diego Regional Human Trafficking Task Force, my office’s Sex Crimes and Human Trafficking Division and all our partners that work around the clock to recover victims as young as 12,” she said.

    “Together they hold human traffickers and criminal buyers accountable for their crimes. The ongoing efforts of the task force demonstrate that law enforcement will not tolerate this modern-day slavery of vulnerable victims who are bought and sold like a slice of pizza.”

    Officials asked that anyone who is or knows someone being coerced or forced to engage in sexual activity or labor call the National Human Trafficking Hotline at 1-888-373-7888 to access help.


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  • Portland Police Continues To Crack Down On Sex Trafficking – KXL

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    PORTLAND, Ore. – More than 20 people have arrested or cited since late July for alleged sex trafficking.

    Portland Police has joined multiple agencies for focused enforcement efforts along Northeast 82nd Avenue and Northeast Sandy Boulevard in response to growing community concerns and persistent livability issues tied to sex trafficking.

    Twenty people were arrested or cited for charges including commercial sexual solicitation and unlawful prostitution procurement activities.

    The individuals arrested include:

    • Dires Akalu, 45, Portland

    • Josue Bernabe-Gonzales, 25, Kelso, Wash.

    • Tomas Bulux-Velasquez, 32, Vancouver, Wash.

    • Todd Campbell, 26, Spanaway, Wash.

    • Jordin Chacaj-Lopez, 23, Hillsboro

    • Pedro Francisco-Mateo, 48, Portland

    • Samuel Gavrilita, 21, Vancouver, Wash.

    • Elias Garcia-Perez, 26, Vancouver, Wash.

    • Melito Guillermo, 20, Portland

    • Jason Kobbe, 24, Beaverton

    • Julien Krein, 24, Gresham

    • Jose Luengo-Bastarrica, 29, Portland

    • Oscar Martinez-Amaro, 25, Portland

    • Paul Newton, 52, Mt. Angel

    • Brandon Pedroza, 32, Sherwood

    • Jermick Phaynid, 24, Portland

    • Kevin Shults, 66, Portland

    • Matthew Stoner, 32, Portland

    • Alejandro Vargas-Manzano, 46, Gresham

    • Kevin Zurita-Varela, 19, Portland

    Officers also towed five vehicles, recovered at least one firearm, and collected intelligence related to suspected traffickers and buyers.

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    Grant McHill

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  • Looking Inward: Fantastic Negrito’s Constant Inspiration

    Looking Inward: Fantastic Negrito’s Constant Inspiration

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    Xavier Amin Dphrepaulezz, known as Fantastic Negrito, has a personal story so fascinating that it serves as a well of inspiration. He doesn’t have to use fiction to find a story, but only needs to turn to himself.

    “I happen to be very interesting. When you’ve got an interesting story, tell it,” he says bluntly. Fantastic Negrito will perform in Houston at The Heights Theater on Friday, August 30 with Houston blues man The Mighty Orq opening the show.

    Fantastic Negrito is coming to Texas fresh off a recent tour with Primus and excited to be in front of audiences again encouraging everyone to come out saying about his shows, “It’s like church without the religion.”

    There is a kind of magic to Fantastic Negrito’s openness that not only draws people in but also encourages others to look for the story within themselves and their environment.

    His latest project, which has taken on three different incarnations at this point, began with his 2022 album White Jesus Black Problems, released on his own Storefront Records. The album, and accompanying film tells the true story of his seventh generation grandparents’ incredible love story.

    The sound of White Jesus Black Problems takes from the very beginning of blues blending early African beats with more modern, distorted sounds creating a blues like no other while maintaining the raw energy of the genre.

    The album went on to allow Fantastic Negrito to win his third Grammy award for Best Contemporary Blues Album and he went even further recording the songs from the album in stripped down, acoustic versions on Grandfather Courage.

    His white Scottish grandmother, an indentured servant, was able to somehow sustain her common law marriage with her husband, Grandfather courage, despite him being an enslaved African American.

    “When I discovered that story in my family archives and this forbidden union that they had in the 1700s on a tobacco plantation in Virginia, I felt compelled and inspired to tell their story through music, film and then the acoustic version because I just felt inspired.”

    The strong story and subject matter not only speaks to the bravery and strength of love, but also the complicated history of this country and all of the nuances between race, history and equality.

    “The main thing the message I got from my seventh generation grandparents is stop complaining because you’re not going through shit compared to what we went through and we should all be grateful for everything. People have had far greater obstacles and these obstacles must become our fuel these, obstacles must become our inspiration.”

    “People have had far greater obstacles and these obstacles must become our fuel these, obstacles must become our inspiration.”

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    These are words he clearly lives by as the many obstacles in his colorful life constantly serve to inspire not only his music, but his audience. Born the eighth of fifteen kids to his strict Somali Muslim father in Massachusetts, a young Dphrepaulezz took to street life when the family relocated to Oakland where he still resides.

    Selling dope and running amuck, he became aware of Prince and the concept of being a self taught musician, an idea that led him to begin sneaking into music classes at Berkeley pretending to be enrolled there so he could learn a thing or two.

    “I had a conversation with Quincy Jones and he told me the same thing,” he explains. “He broke into this place messing around and he saw this piano and I thought, man I can relate to that. Music saves us.”

    His first album The X Factor was put out on a major label, Interscope Records, under the name Xavier. After a serious car crash which left him in a three week coma and released from his contract with the label, Dphrepaulezz stepped away from music.

    In 2014 he returned, reborn as Fantastic Negrito. “When I came up with Fantastic Negrito I wasn’t talking about myself, I was really talking about the legacy of where I came from and people that contributed so much to this world musically. People that came off the slave ships and that legacy of music, rock, folk, soul, jazz, rhythm and blues, hip hop that’s what’s fantastic. I wasn’t talking about myself.” 


    On his current project, Fantastic Negrito is again turning inward for inspiration and looking at the story of his father. The album titled Son Of A Broken Man is set to be released later this year with his single, “Undefeated Eyes” featuring Sting already out and setting the pace for the tenderness and vulnerability expected of the album.

    “My father was born in 1905. When I was born he was 63 and my mother was 30 so he’s been gone but it’s great to just come to terms with all this stuff and turn the bullshit into good shit that’s what I always believe.”

    Fantastic Negrito will perform with The Mighty Orq on Friday, August 30 at The Heights Theater, 339 W 19th. Doors at 7 p.m, tickets $24-44.

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    Gladys Fuentes

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  • Reviews For The Easily Distracted: Sting

    Reviews For The Easily Distracted: Sting

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    Title: Sting

    Describe This Movie In One Simpsons Quote:

    JOHN: Well Homer, I won your respect. And all I had to do was save your life.

    Brief Plot Synopsis: Alien arachnid assails apartment animal and anthropoids.

    Rating Using Random Objects Relevant To The Film: 3 Feyd Rauthas out of 5.

    click to enlarge

    Tagline: “Your biggest fear just got bigger.”

    Better Tagline: “The spider man is having you for dinner tonight.”

    Not So Brief Plot Synopsis: In what has to be Brooklyn’s most rent controlled apartment building, young Charlotte (Alyla Browne) is coping with the fact her mom Heather (Penelope Mitchell) has not only remarried — Ethan (Ryan Corr), the building supervisor — but also has a new baby (Liam) with him. Fortunately (?) for her, she finds solace with a pet spider with the ability to mimic sounds and grow exponentially.
    “Critical” Analysis: Yes, the girl’s name is “Charlotte.” Let’s move on.

    As phobia-inducing creatures go, spiders don’t have quite as extensive a cinematic history as, say, sharks. Forced to opine on this disparity (and practically half of those are Godzilla movies with Kumonga), I’d say that in most cases you have to significantly increase a spider’s size to make them terrifying. On their own, sharks are already pretty scary, even if they’re far from the bloodthirsty maneaters Steven Spielberg told us they were.

    The quality of spider vs. shark movies, on the other hand, is pretty commensurate. A couple of classics (Arachnophobia, Tarantula), lots of good-to-mediocre (Kingdom of the Spiders, Earth vs. the Spider, Eight Legged Freaks), and the usual parade of SyFy and anthology entries. The latest offering, Kiah Roache-Turner’s Sting, may not reach the loftiest heights of the genre, but it’s a solid self-contained horror flick.

    Sting opens with a sequence reminiscent of that old Monty Python skit about the hot woman luring milkmen into her house, only instead of a lingerie-clad Thelma Taylor (or Carol Cleveland in the movie) you’ve got Australian TV presenter Noni Hazelhurst as a mildly addled septuagenarian calling a succession of exterminators to deal with some odd noises in her walls.

    Backing up a bit, we see these events started with an asteroid cluster passing close to Earth days earlier, one (very small) example of which finds itself into Charlotte’s apartment building. Charlotte, in the habit of using the surprisingly spacious ductwork to sneak around from apartment to apartment, finds the asteroid’s resident, whom she christens “Sting.” Presumably over confusion about actual spider anatomy.

    click to enlarge

    You can guess what happens next (especially if you’ve seen the trailer): Charlotte feeds the cute little guy, who soon grows beyond the need for assistance finding sustenance. The big question is whether the building’s (remaining) humans realize what’s happening before it’s too late, because in a building with about 10 residents (including pets), absences are noticed pretty quickly.

    That’s especially the case when the spider in question gives absolutely zero shits about who it eats. Your cat? Parrot? Baby? Just food waiting to be liquefied. Charlotte coasts on the beast’s goodwill for a short time, until its size and diminishing food supply force it’s hand, er, pedipalp. Sting’s ability to trivially escape from any enclosure is more reminiscent of an octopus than a spider, but the former isn’t quite as nightmarish, so here we are.

    As Aliens ripoffs go, Sting is better than most. Our eight-legged xenomorph emerges from a goopy space egg and gets around through the building’s air ducts, while our heroic protagonist arms herself with makeshift weapons in order to get her baby brother back. Corr even gives it his best Lance Henriksen during the final throwdown. As I’ve said more than once in this gig, if you’re gonna steal, steal from the best.

    But it’s the parent angle that gets the most work. Will Ethan demonstrate is devotion to his stepdaughter and redeem himself in spite of a downward spiral of a career? Will this new family unit survive vituperation from Heather’s side of the family? And does anybody in this building still own mothballs?

    Sting is in theaters today.

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    Pete Vonder Haar

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  • Sting To Become A Fellow Of The Ivors Academy, Releases Unheard Demo Of ‘If It’s Love’

    Sting To Become A Fellow Of The Ivors Academy, Releases Unheard Demo Of ‘If It’s Love’

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    By Aashna Shah.
    Published:

    During the 2023 Ivors, which will be held at Grosvenor House in London on May 18, Sting will receive the highest distinction bestowed by The Ivors Academy: the designation of Academy Fellow.


    READ MORE:
    Sting Performs ‘Russians’, A Song He Wrote During The Cold War, Amid Invasion Of Ukraine

    Sting, who has already received seven Ivor awards, including the lifetime achievement honour in 2002, will become a fellow of the academy, joining artists including Sir Paul McCartney, Kate Bush, Joan Armatrading, Peter Gabriel, and Sir Elton John.

    Sting’s 2021 single “If It’s Love,” which is taken from his most recent album “The Bridge,” will be made available as a never-before-heard demo as part of The Ivors’ recently announced sponsor Amazon Music’s celebration of his new fellowship.

    “Of all the awards in the world of music, The Ivors are for me, the most prestigious,” Sting said in a statement. “Songwriting is a skilled craft and The Ivors Academy are its guild. So, I am delighted and honoured to be offered this Fellowship of the Academy, joining and acknowledging this extraordinary group of fellow songwriters, and all of those who went before us.”

     

    Sting has received numerous awards over his career, including 17 Grammys, three Brit Awards, and song of the year in 1984 for “Every Breath You Take.”

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    Aashna Shah

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  • Entrepreneur | The Highest-Paid Entertainer of 2022 Is Not Who You Think

    Entrepreneur | The Highest-Paid Entertainer of 2022 Is Not Who You Think

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    Forbes just released its annual list of “The World’s 10 Highest-Paid Entertainers in 2002” — and they’re not all who you’d think.

    Classic English rock band Genesis took the top spot, earning $230 million in a single year. Genesis, which released its first album in 1969, launched the careers of both Peter Gabriel and Phil Collins, releasing such hit songs as “Invisible Touch” and “That’s All.”

    But those songs dropped way back in the 1980s, so how did Genesis make so much money last year? One word: Publishing.

    According to Forbes, Genesis sold the rights to their music catalog to Concord Music Group in September for $300 million. The deal also included some of Phil Collins’ solo work, including his hit song “In The Air Tonight.”

    Genesis weren’t the only greying rockers to kill it in 2022.

    Sting was the second highest-paid entertainer. The former Police frontman and solo star of the 80s sold his entire songwriting catalog, including his work with the Police (“Every Breath You Take”) and his solo hits (“If You Love Somebody Set Them Free”), to Universal Music Group for $210 million.

    Genesis and Sting were the latest benefactors of major music conglomerates and companies, like JP Morgan and BlackRock, investing in artists’ music catalogs, which they believe are undervalued in the age of streaming.

    Related: Elon Musk Isn’t the World’s Richest Person Anymore — Here’s Who Stole His Title

    Who else made the list?

    Not all the big earners last year were in their 70s. Other highly-paid entertainers include Taylor Swift (#9), who earned $92 million from her record sales, streaming, digital downloads, and licensing.

    And that was last year.

    “Crashing Ticketmaster with insane demand for her Midnights tour in November suggests an even bigger 2023 for her,” wrote Forbes.

    Latin rapper Bad Bunny was the 10th highest-paid entertainer of 2022, earning $88 million, thanks to his two tours and endorsements from Corona, Cheetos, and Adidas.

    Here is the entire list:

    1. Genesis ($230 million)

    2. Sting ($210 million)

    3. Tyler Perry ($175 million)

    4. Trey Parker and Matt Stone ($160 million)

    5. James L. Brooks and Matt Groening ($105 million)

    6. Brad Pitt ($100 million)

    7. The Rolling Stones ($98 million)

    8. James Cameron ($95 million)

    9. Taylor Swift ($92 million)

    10. Bad Bunny ($88 million)

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    Jonathan Small

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