Las Notis is a daily news column that gets you up to speed on the political, media + other going ons in Latin America and the diaspora—all in one quick digest.
The Commerce Department reported on Friday that personal income was up 10% in January, a number almost entirely a result of $600 government relief checks and unemployment insurance payments that have been issued amid the pandemic. Spending increased as well due to government stimulus money, offering signs of a potential economic recovery. [NYT]
Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador promised to prioritize the country’s poorest and most disadvantaged citizens while distributing the vaccine. While the move is seen as a sign that the government is acknowledging Mexico’s class hierarchies, some experts and scientists are worried that the communities that are first in line have low virus caseloads. [WaPo]
Despite facing backlash for going on a vacation to Cancun while Texans were dealing with an ice snap that killed several people, Ted Cruz attended the Conservative Political Action Conference on Friday and cracked jokes about leaving the country during a crisis. “I gotta say, Orlando is awesome,” Cruz said. “It’s not as nice as Cancun. But it’s nice.” [The Week]
A report released this week from the Center for Popular Democracy shows that two-thirds of Latinx immigrants interviewed had faced unemployment at some point last year during the pandemic. The survey included conversations with 900 immigrants from New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Nevada. [HuffPo]
Armando Rubio,who hosted a Spanish-language radio show and worked as a station manager for Telemundo’s local TV station in Oklahoma, died this month of Covid-19 complications. He was 73. [NBC Latino]
A new study released Friday shows that although Netflix has improved gender equity and Black representation with its storytelling, Latinx representation remains abysmally low on and behind the camera. Only 4% of Netflix’s original films in 2018 and 2019 featured Latinx lead characters, and 3.6% of main cast members called themselves Latinx. When it came to original shows, only 1.7% had Latinx lead characters. [HuffPo]
