Isabella Gomez-Sarmiento
Appearances
NPR News Now
NPR News: 02-18-2025 5AM EST
Paquita La Del Barrio, which informally translates to Paquita from the Block, became a star in Mexico in the 1980s. She was beloved for the disdain with which she sang about the men who broke her heart. Paquita said her music was inspired by her real relationships. For decades, her lyrics channeled her pain into feminist rage. In the hit Una Rata de Dos Patas, she famously compared an ex-lover
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NPR News: 02-18-2025 5AM EST
to a cursed leech and a poisonous snake. Paquita La del Barrio's team announced her passing. No cause of death was given. Mexico City's Department of Culture issued a statement celebrating her, quote, unmistakable voice and unique style. Isabella Gomez-Sarmiento, NPR News. I'm Dave Mattingly in Washington.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 04-01-2025 7PM EDT
Like in real life, the musical behind Buena Vista Social Club is about a music producer trying to assemble a group of older musicians to record an album. ¶¶ Artists like pianist Rubén González, guitarist Compay Segundo, and singer Ibrahim Ferrer were all performers in 1950s Havana. But after the Cuban Revolution, many musicians had to look for other jobs to make a living.
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NPR News: 04-01-2025 7PM EDT
It wasn't until the 1990s, when they formed Buena Vista Social Club and released an album with the same name, that they achieved international success. The Broadway musical takes creative liberties with the characters, but the music remains at the heart of their story. Isabella Gomez-Tarmiento, NPR News.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 05-17-2025 7AM EDT
The star witness in the government's case against Sean Combs finished her testimony today. Cassie Ventura spent four days answering questions from the prosecution and Combs' defense about their relationship. Ventura testified that she loved Combs, but he was often violent and forced her to have sex with male escorts.
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NPR News: 05-17-2025 7AM EDT
After Ventura's cross-examination, prosecutors called an agent from Homeland Security Investigations to the stand to lay some of the groundwork for the sex trafficking charges. At the end of the day, singer Dawn Richard began her testimony. She said she saw Combs hit Ventura more than once. Richard will continue testifying on Monday. Isabella Gomez-Sarmiento, NPR News.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 03-15-2025 4PM EDT
Federal prosecutors filed a superseding indictment against Sean Combs on March 6th. It does not contain new charges against Combs, but it does describe a pattern of coercion and control, alleging that Combs forced his employees to work long hours and threaten them so they would do what he asked.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 03-15-2025 4PM EDT
Combs, who has been in custody since his arrest last September, pleaded not guilty to the new indictment. The rapper and businessman still faces federal charges that include sex trafficking by force, racketeering conspiracy, and transporting for prostitution. Jury selection for Combs' trial will begin in New York City on May 5th. Isabella Gomez-Sarmiento, NPR News.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 03-31-2025 5PM EDT
There are only a couple dozen surviving manuscripts of the Suite Vulgate du Merlin. It's the sequel to the original story of King Arthur. All of the copies were scribed by hand, and one written between 1275 and 1315 has just been unveiled at Cambridge. The story is written in Old French and had been stitched into the binding of a property record from the 16th century.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 03-31-2025 5PM EDT
It includes the tale of a battle between the Saxons and Christians. Researchers at Cambridge had to use special technology to capture high-resolution images and X-ray scans of the manuscript. They say this discovery is paving the way for how to digitize other medieval documents. Isabella Gomez-Sarmiento, NPR News.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 04-04-2025 5PM EDT
Bruce Springsteen has announced that tracks to The Lost Albums will include dozens of previously unheard songs, including this one, Rain in the River. That's a song from an unreleased 2018 album. But the entire collection will span as far back as four decades. And it will connect the dots between some of Springsteen's most notable projects, like Nebraska and Born in the USA.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 04-04-2025 5PM EDT
Lauren Anki is a professor of music at George Washington University.
Up First from NPR
Arrest In UnitedHealthcare CEO Killing, Netanyahu Trial, Jay-Z Rape Allegations
That's right. So in October, Texas attorney Tony Busby announced he had more than 100 victims who had come forward with allegations against Combs. He's filed more than a dozen of those lawsuits already, all of them on behalf of unnamed plaintiffs.
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Arrest In UnitedHealthcare CEO Killing, Netanyahu Trial, Jay-Z Rape Allegations
One of those lawsuits alleges that in September of 2000, Combs and an unnamed male celebrity raped a 13-year-old girl at the VMA's afterparty while a female celebrity stood by and watched. On Sunday, that lawsuit was amended and refiled. to say that Jay-Z, whose real name is Sean Carter, was the male celebrity who took part in that rape.
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Arrest In UnitedHealthcare CEO Killing, Netanyahu Trial, Jay-Z Rape Allegations
And I want to reiterate that the allegations against Jay-Z are part of a civil suit filed against Sean Combs. Jay-Z is not facing any criminal charges.
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Arrest In UnitedHealthcare CEO Killing, Netanyahu Trial, Jay-Z Rape Allegations
So Jay-Z issued a statement to NPR saying that these claims are completely false. He publicly called Busby, quote, an ambulance chaser in a cheap suit and said that Busby attempted to blackmail him to extort settlement money. He also filed a motion for the anonymous lawsuit to be dismissed or for the plaintiff's identity to be disclosed.
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Arrest In UnitedHealthcare CEO Killing, Netanyahu Trial, Jay-Z Rape Allegations
Jay-Z's reps confirmed to NPR that he is in the process of taking action against Busby.
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Arrest In UnitedHealthcare CEO Killing, Netanyahu Trial, Jay-Z Rape Allegations
So Busby is known for representing clients in high profile cases. He was the lawyer for Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton during his 2023 impeachment trial. He also represented the women who sued football player Deshaun Watson for sexual misconduct and victims of the Astroworld deadly crowd surge who sued rapper Travis Scott.
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Arrest In UnitedHealthcare CEO Killing, Netanyahu Trial, Jay-Z Rape Allegations
And it's not just the cases themselves that have garnered a lot of attention. Busby has also run for office several times in Texas. He self-funded a run for Houston mayor in 2019. And in 2023, he ran for city council. He ended up losing both of those races. His other professional ventures include property development and a short-lived, THC-infused seltzer company.
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Arrest In UnitedHealthcare CEO Killing, Netanyahu Trial, Jay-Z Rape Allegations
Yeah, that seems to be one of the big priorities for the Busby firm at the moment. Busby has insinuated that other famous celebrities may have been involved in the alleged crimes and may be named in future lawsuits. Here he is on a YouTube stream from that initial press conference in October.
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Arrest In UnitedHealthcare CEO Killing, Netanyahu Trial, Jay-Z Rape Allegations
And again, so far, all of the accusers have remained anonymous, which Carter and Combs lawyers have taken issue with. Combs attorneys have denied all of the allegations and have questioned Busby's credibility. At the same time, we know Combs is under federal investigation and has been indicted on charges of sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy. He has pleaded not guilty.
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Arrest In UnitedHealthcare CEO Killing, Netanyahu Trial, Jay-Z Rape Allegations
He was recently denied bail a third time, so he will remain in custody in a Brooklyn jail while awaiting his May trial for those criminal charges.
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Arrest In UnitedHealthcare CEO Killing, Netanyahu Trial, Jay-Z Rape Allegations
Thank you.
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President Trump Third Term, Smithsonian Executive Order, Myanmar Earthquake
A lot of this is about the people and stories that are highlighted at these museums and sites and the language used to describe American history. The order directs Vice President J.D. Vance, who is on the Smithsonian's Board of Regents, to oversee the removal of, quote, "'improper, divisive, or anti-American ideology' from the Smithsonian's museums and research centers."
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President Trump Third Term, Smithsonian Executive Order, Myanmar Earthquake
Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie Bunch sent an email on Friday telling staff that the Smithsonian will continue to employ internal review processes and that, quote, And we should note here, Lonnie Bunch was previously the founding director of the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture, one of the museums Trump singled out in the executive order.
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President Trump Third Term, Smithsonian Executive Order, Myanmar Earthquake
That's right. I mean, if we can rewind a little bit, there's been a growing movement in recent years to reflect on what history we honor in the U.S. and what may have been left out. But there was a turning point when a white police officer killed George Floyd, who was black, in 2020. His death sparked wide protests, and for a lot of people, it was a reexamining of this country's racial history.
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President Trump Third Term, Smithsonian Executive Order, Myanmar Earthquake
Within a year and a half, 200 public Confederate symbols had been taken down, relocated, or renamed. That included things like monuments, school names, even road names. Those are numbers provided by the Southern Poverty Law Center, which is a legal and advocacy group which tracks Confederate iconography in the US.
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President Trump Third Term, Smithsonian Executive Order, Myanmar Earthquake
I should say, the executive order isn't specifically about Confederate symbols, but it instructs the interior secretary to review monuments, markers, and statues that may have been taken down or changed since January 2020, more than a year before Trump left office in his first term, and restore them.
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President Trump Third Term, Smithsonian Executive Order, Myanmar Earthquake
It calls for a wholesale review to make sure that memorials under interior department jurisdiction, quote, do not contain descriptions, depictions, or other content that inappropriately disparage Americans past or living, including persons living in colonial times.
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President Trump Third Term, Smithsonian Executive Order, Myanmar Earthquake
That's the big question, and it's pretty unclear right now. Seth Levy of the Southern Poverty Law Center says many of the sites that did see changes were on land controlled by municipalities and state governments, not land controlled by the Department of the Interior or any of the bureaus it oversees, like the National Park Service.
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President Trump Third Term, Smithsonian Executive Order, Myanmar Earthquake
We reached out to the Department of the Interior and didn't hear back.
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President Trump Third Term, Smithsonian Executive Order, Myanmar Earthquake
That's right. I spoke with art historian Erin Thompson. She's the author of a book called Smashing Statues, the Rise and Fall of America's Public Monuments. And she says that Trump's executive order is trying to gloss over some of the darker aspects of American history.
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President Trump Third Term, Smithsonian Executive Order, Myanmar Earthquake
Thompson says it's important to grapple with mistakes from the past so we don't make them again. But ultimately, you can't control historical memory by controlling monuments.
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Trump And The Constitution, Gaza Food Aid Plan, Sean 'Diddy' Combs Trial Begins
Even given those numbers that you're talking about, don't you need to uphold the Constitution of the United States as president?
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Trump And The Constitution, Gaza Food Aid Plan, Sean 'Diddy' Combs Trial Begins
You're not taking the possibility that these tariffs could be permanent off the table.
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Birthright Citizenship Arguments, Trump's Mideast Trip, Sean 'Diddy' Combs Trial
So basically, prosecutors are alleging that Combs forced two of his ex-girlfriends into these highly orchestrated sexual performances that were fueled by drug use. They're saying he ran a criminal enterprise that not only enabled but concealed those sex crimes along with other illegal activities.
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Birthright Citizenship Arguments, Trump's Mideast Trip, Sean 'Diddy' Combs Trial
She has shared a lot. She really painted a picture of pervasive control and violence over the 11-year relationship that she shared with Combs. So first she testified that Combs demanded that she participate in sexual encounters with male escorts that Combs would choreograph, watch, and film. Ventura said that he would allegedly blackmail her with these videos.
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Birthright Citizenship Arguments, Trump's Mideast Trip, Sean 'Diddy' Combs Trial
And then she also testified about how Combs was physically abusive towards her for years. The government showed photos of bruising and other injuries that Ventura said resulted from his beatings. So she said she loved Combs, but that he could also be scary, and she just didn't feel like she could safely leave that relationship.
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Birthright Citizenship Arguments, Trump's Mideast Trip, Sean 'Diddy' Combs Trial
Yeah, I mean, so like you were saying, Ventura testified that Combs wielded a lot of power over her, that power was professional, it was financial, emotional, physical, and that he used that to coerce her into this sex that she didn't want to participate in.
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Birthright Citizenship Arguments, Trump's Mideast Trip, Sean 'Diddy' Combs Trial
She also spoke a lot about how Combs requested that she hire male escorts and arrange travel for them, so that connects to those prostitution charges. And she detailed how his employees were allegedly at his beck and call to help commit and cover up these crimes.
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Birthright Citizenship Arguments, Trump's Mideast Trip, Sean 'Diddy' Combs Trial
So, I mean, off the bat earlier this week, the defense admitted that Combs has been violent, but they say he didn't coerce or traffic anyone. So when they began cross-examining Ventura, they relied heavily on text message evidence. They had her read out loud these loving, caring texts she exchanged with Combs over the years. The defense is really trying to establish grounds for consent.
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Birthright Citizenship Arguments, Trump's Mideast Trip, Sean 'Diddy' Combs Trial
So they also had her read texts in which she was agreeing to or at least planning logistics for those sexual performances. Basically, they're trying to suggest she was doing all of this willingly. And if she wanted to, she could have walked away.
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Birthright Citizenship Arguments, Trump's Mideast Trip, Sean 'Diddy' Combs Trial
Yeah, I mean, there have been these huge crowds outside the building in lower Manhattan, and that includes everyone from journalists to influencers, podcasters, even just curious members of the public who want to see what this is all about. Some people are camping out overnight to hold their spot in line or paying someone else to hold their spot in line for them.
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Birthright Citizenship Arguments, Trump's Mideast Trip, Sean 'Diddy' Combs Trial
And whenever court adjourns, there tends to be a frenzy of people running outside, making TikToks, even chasing down family members as they leave. So it's been a really, really busy scene this first week.
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Birthright Citizenship Arguments, Trump's Mideast Trip, Sean 'Diddy' Combs Trial
Thank you, Steve.