Cesar Chavez, the famed union leader and champion of farmworker rights, has been accused of sexually abusing two girls in the 1970s as well as Dolores Huerta, with whom he co-founded the United Farm Workers, in the 1960s, according to an investigation published by the New York Times.

The newspaper spoke with two women who said they were children when Chavez began to groom and sexually abuse them during his time as UFW president. One of the women said Chavez raped her in a motel room in 1975 when she was 15 years old and he was 47. The other woman said Chavez began groping her in his office at the union’s headquarters when she was 13. Both women, now in their 60s, were the daughters of organizers within the farmworker movement.

NPR has not independently investigated the allegations against Chavez, who died in 1993. The New York Times spoke with more than 60 people and reviewed documents and other materials bolstering his accuser’s stories.

Huerta, a labor leader long revered for her work on behalf of farmworkers alongside Chavez, told the newspaper that he raped her in a car in 1966.

She told the Times that “Mr. Chavez drove her out to a secluded grape field in Delano, Calif., parked and forced her to have sex inside the vehicle.” Huerta told the newspaper that she chose not to tell anyone about the rape because “she feared that no one within the union would believe her.”

In a statement posted to Medium on Wednesday, Huerta wrote: “I am nearly 96 years old, and for the last 60 years have kept a secret because I believed that exposing the truth would hurt the farmworker movement I have spent my entire life fighting for.”

She wrote that she had two separate encounters with Chavez in the 1960s.

“The first time, I was manipulated and pressured into having sex with him, and I didn’t feel I could say no because he was someone that I admired, my boss and the leader of the movement I had already devoted years of my life to,” she wrote. “The second time I was forced, against my will, and in an environment where I felt trapped.”

Both encounters led to pregnancies that she kept secret, she wrote. After the children were born, she said, she arranged for them to be raised by other families. Over the years, she has become close to those children, she said, “but even then, no one knew the full truth about how they were conceived until just a few weeks ago.”

Some people close to Chavez during his lifetime, including longtime bodyguards, rejected the allegations against him, according to the Times.

The newspaper’s report came a day after the United Farm Workers issued a statement saying it had become aware of the allegations against Chavez.

“Allegations that very young women or girls may have been victimized are crushing,” the union said. It said it was seeking to learn more and to help women who may have been victims. It also announced that it would not be participating in events for Cesar Chavez Day, a state holiday celebrated in California each March 31, Chavez’s birthday.

The Cesar Chavez Foundation, which in part works to promote Chavez’s legacy and with which members of his family are still involved, wrote in its own statement on Tuesday that it would also seek to support victims of the alleged abuse.

“We are deeply shocked and saddened by what we are hearing,” the foundation wrote. “The Foundation is working with leaders in the Farmworker Movement to be responsive to these allegations, support the people who may have been harmed by his actions, and ensure we are united and guided by our commitment to justice and community empowerment.”

Chavez became a national figure during the 1960s for his work organizing farmworkers struggling for better wages and working conditions, employing hunger strikes and a famed national boycott of California grapes.

In the decades since his death, he has become one of the most iconic heroes of the labor movement and of the Mexican American community. Schools, community centers and streets across the western United States have been renamed after him.

Fallout from the abuse allegations has been swift. In California, Texas and Arizona, celebrations planned in his honor later this month have been canceled or renamed. On social media, some Latinos have been calling for the many murals of Chavez to be painted over, and for schools and boulevards bearing his name to be renamed after Huerta.

You may have heard: Taco Bell is getting into the beauty business.

Because nothing says clear skin like Cheesy Gordita Crunch and Beefy 5-Layer Burrito.

The fast-food chain announced last week that it would be introducing “Mountain Dew Baja Blast Under Eye Patches” later this year. (Yes, really.) The news came at Taco Bell’s Live Más Live gala March 10, during which the company introduced more than 20 new menu items — though the under-eye patches are the only non-edibles being rolled out.

“For the Baja Blast die-hard, infused with caffeine and a refreshing boost of citrus,” Taco Bell said in a news release, “these patches energize skin and deliver cooling hydration.”

Taco Bell didn’t give a release date or share any more information about the ingredients in its soon-to-debut eye patches. So we were, well, hungry for information.

For starters: why under-eye patches?!

“It’s an opportunity to extend the brand beyond the category,” says University of Michigan marketing professor Marcus Collins, author of “For the Culture: The Power Behind What We Buy, What We Do, and Who We Want to Be.” “It’s about engaging in the things that are culturally relevant for a given group of people. Taco Bell has always seen themselves as skewing young — their brand ambassador is Doja Cat — and what’s important in the zeitgeist is a lot of health and wellness, beauty.”

Hydrating under-eye patches typically address puffiness, dark circles and wrinkles. The eye mask improves delivery of the active ingredients to the skin, says double board-certified dermatologist Elizabeth Bahar Houshmand. Common ingredients include hyaluronic acid to help with hydration, peptides for skin plumping, retinals for fine lines and vitamin C for brightening the under-eye area.

“It’s an unexpected crossover,” Bahar Houshmand says of Taco Bell’s imminent skincare product, “but we’re seeing more pop cultural and lifestyle brands entering the beauty space. From a dermatologist’s perspective, the key question for me is always: formulation [meaning ingredients], skincare efficacy and evidence-based clinical testing.”

Some of Bahar Houshmand’s favorite under-eye patches, on both the low and high end of the spectrum?

COSRX’s Peptide Collagen Hydrogel Eye Patch ($23): “I use them myself. They’re great, even for patients with more sensitive skin. I put them in the fridge and they have a nice cooling effect. It’s great for travel.”

SkinMedica’s Instant Bright Eye Mask ($50 for a pack of six): “It’s a splurge, but works nicely for dark circles and puffiness. It has golden root extract, which is great for environmental stressors; it’s a potent antioxidant and is good for hydration.”

If you instead go for Taco Bell’s under-eye masks, just drink plenty of water with your Taco Bell Nachos BellGrande, which is high in fat and has more than 1,100 mg of skin-dehydrating sodium.

“When people ask me about under-eye bags and puffiness, one of the first things I tell them is to decrease the amount of sodium in their dietary intake,” says L.A.-based dermatologist Ivy Lee. “Healthy skin is also a result of healthy and balanced diets.”

This summer, when soccer and the World Cup come to America, FIFA will have a tough task: hosting a global competition during a period of political violence and instability. It won’t be the first time for FIFA, soccer’s governing body.

Take the 1978 World Cup in Argentina. A coup had just taken place two years before in 1976. And before a tournament ball was ever kicked in the summer of 1978, a “Dirty War” was taking place. Tens of thousands of people were either killed or kidnapped throughout Argentina, and a brutal junta ruled the country using violence and fear.

But in 1978, soccer offered the country a respite. This is where Roger Bennett’s new book, We Are the World (Cup), starts. It isn’t a story about soccer and war. The book is a love letter first to the beautiful game. It brings you into one man’s safe space, a space that he shares with millions of people around the world where joy, pain, love, and community dance together in a synchronized trance. The World Cup, as he writes, being a thing “far more precious than mere sport.”

Every four years, the tournament is hosted in a different city. The 1978 games in Argentina was the first time Bennett experienced the spectacle. It was also his first glimpse at how soccer often mirrors life and all its complications. At age 7, he saw Argentina win the final against the Netherlands, 3-1. The tournament was an enthralling spectacle but was also used for political propaganda — a smokescreen for Gen. Jorge Videla’s state-sponsored terror campaign. He writes:

“When two teams take the field, their nation’s histories, politics, and cultures take the field alongside them. It is that fusion of sporting, cultural, and geopolitical aspects that make the storytelling so epic, poetic, and multilayered. Like Walt Whitman, the tournament contains multitudes. With the games dripping out, one at a time, the entire planet is focused on a single match while it is being played, all the eyes of the world resting on twenty-two elite athletes acting out a sporting telenovela, living making decisions without a script, under conditions of hysterical pressure.” 

This 300-plus page account of Bennett’s life during the weeklong competition weaves through history — both personal and global. The book is a mostly light-hearted exploration of Bennett’s relationship with the tournament, from growing up in England rooting for his local soccer heroes, to watching in amazement every four years as teams from all over the globe take the spotlight on the World Cup stage. It’s a personal account, yes, but at its best, the book is an entrance point for new soccer fans in America. We Are the World (Cup) takes readers through the growth and history — and sometimes the hatred — of soccer in America.

Bennett eventually adopts America as his new home; his story takes readers through the pains and labor of his “one-man crusade to expand the vacuum that was American football coverage.” (Football, as the sport is called around the world, refers to American soccer here.)

The last time the U.S. hosted the World cup was in the summer of 1994. A poll taken before the 1994 World Cup, Bennett writes, revealed that 71% of Americans didn’t know the World Cup was coming to America and the other 29% didn’t care. Another study released then said soccer was America’s 67th favorite sport. “Tractor pulling was 66,” he writes. Americans, at the time, “didn’t just not care about soccer, they actively hated it.”

But American soccer is different now. Mia Hamm walked years ago so Trinity Rodman could run today. By now most Americans know that an Argentine man called Lionel Messi is living somewhere in South Florida with a pink shirt. Soccer jerseys are en vogue. Bars across the country not only play soccer but support local and European clubs. In We Are the World (Cup) readers also get a behind the scenes look at how Bennett and his Men in Blazers media network transformed how we talked about soccer in the U.S.

When the World Cup takes place in the Americas again this summer, some games will be hosted in Mexico and Canada. There will be nearly 50 countries participating. And when the teams take the field, as Bennett writes, their nation’s political tensions will also be on display. For countries like Haiti, Senegal, and Ivory Coast, players and staff will receive certain immigration exemptions, but citizens from those countries expect added visa restrictions under U.S. administration policies. And adding to the complications, Iranian officials are reportedly negotiating to have their matches played in Mexico instead of the U.S.

Just a few months out, there are so many unanswered questions. Is American soccer here to stay? Will the war with Iran, immigration raids, ungodly expensive tickets and a polarized U.S. sour the games? Will Ronaldo sail off into the sunset lifting the trophy like Messi did in 2022? And most importantly: Will the games offer us all a moment of peace and healing? We Are the World (Cup) may not have answers but it will help you understand the storm on the horizon.