Category Archives: Americas

Giant sloth pendants indicate humans settled Americas much earlier than thought

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Scientists studied jewelry made from now extinct creatures and theorize that humans arrived in Americas 27,000 years ago

New research suggests humans lived in South America at the same time as now extinct giant sloths, bolstering evidence that people arrived in the Americas earlier than once thought.

Scientists analyzed triangular and teardrop-shaped pendants made of bony material from the sloths. They concluded that the carved and polished shapes and drilled holes were the work of deliberate craftsmanship.

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California man charged with femicide in deaths of three women in Mexico

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Mexican authorities will seek to extradite Bryant Rivera of the Los Angeles area for the death of Angela Carolina Acosta Flores

US authorities have arrested a California man accused of killing three women in the Mexican border city of Tijuana and crossing back and forth across the international line after each of the deaths, which occurred over the course of nearly a year starting in 2021.

According to US court records, 30-year-old Bryant Rivera, a resident of the Los Angeles suburb of Downey, was arrested on 6 July on a femicide charge in the strangulation death of Angela Carolina Acosta Flores, whose body was found in a hotel room in Tijuana on 25 January 2022.

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‘It’s party time’: Jair Bolsonaro opens themed online store

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Products include ‘party kits’ with hats, cake decorations and banners bearing Brazilian ex-president’s face

Some politicians go on lucrative speaking tours when their days in power are done. Others start foundations, distill whiskey, raise cattle or buy luxury sheds.

Jair Bolsonaro has chosen a different path and opened a shop where, for the price of a hardback, you can order a Bolsonaro-themed birthday pack complete with party hats, cake decorations and a plastic banner carrying a festive message from Brazil’s former president.

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Life imitates art as El Salvador pressures book fair to bar dissenting writer

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Barbers on Strike, author Michelle Recinos’s collection of short stories, has apparently upset strongman president Nayib Bukele

First the soldiers came for those with mohawks. Then they came for the hairdressers themselves.

“They were good kids,” quips the narrator in one of the latest tales by the Salvadorian author Michelle Recinos, “although I’d never trusted them with my hair.”

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‘It’s pillage’: thirsty Uruguayans decry Google’s plan to exploit water supply

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Country suffering its worst drought in 74 years, with government even mixing saltwater into drinking supply

A plan to build a Google data centre that will use millions of litres of water a day has sparked anger in Uruguay, which is suffering its worst drought in 74 years.

Water shortages are so severe in the country that a state of emergency has been declared in Montevideo and the authorities have added salty water to the public drinking water supplies, prompting widespread protests.

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Brazil says illegal miners driven from Indigenous territory, but ‘war’ not over

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Country’s top cop said 90% of miners despoiling Yanomami land had been expelled, though experts say they are only displaced

Brazil’s top federal police chief for the Amazon has celebrated the government’s success in driving thousands of illegal miners from the country’s largest Indigenous territory but warned the “war” against environmental criminals is not yet over.

Speaking during a visit to the Amazon city of Belém, Humberto Freire estimated environmental and police special forces had expelled 90% of the 20,000 miners who had been devastating the protected Yanomami territory, since launching their clampdown in February.

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Weather tracker: heat dome raises temperatures in Spain and Portugal

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Phenomenon is forecast to expand as it strengthens, triggering conditions of more than 30C in parts of Europe

Parts of southern and western Europe have been experiencing unusually high temperatures. Areas of Spain and Portugal have recorded daily maximum temperatures in the high 30s celsius for more than a week, exceeding 40C in parts of southern Spain on Sunday. Italy, France, Germany and the Benelux region also reached the low- to mid-30s celsius in places at the weekend.

The heat is caused by a large area of high pressure that is stagnating over Europe and preventing the usual pattern of low pressure systems moving eastwards into Europe from the Atlantic. This is known as a blocking high and results in very dry and stable conditions, as the fronts associated with more dynamic weather patterns are forced away by the high pressure.

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Mexico: body of missing journalist found in Nayarit state

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La Jornada said the body of Luis Martín Sánchez Iñiguez was found on the outskirts of Tepic, capital of the coastal state

A journalist from Mexican national newspaper La Jornada has been found dead in the Pacific coast state of Nayarit, the publication has said.

La Jornada reported on Saturday the body of Luis Martín Sánchez Iñiguez was found on the outskirts of the state capital, Tepic.

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Canada faces ‘long, tough summer’ of wildfires with even hotter temperatures

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More than 9m hectares of country had burned, federal data shows, shattering 34-year record

Canadian officials have warned that the country faces a “long, tough summer” of wildfires as the current season shatters previous records and forecasts predict even hotter temperatures to come.

Federal data showed that on Friday more than 9m hectares (22.2m acres) of the country had burned, shattering a 34-year record.

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‘We’re all afraid of bears’: judge fines Canadian man for shooting animal

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The judge rejected Serge Paincahud’s ‘scared’ defense to fire at a black bear while illegally carrying a shotgun on a trail

A Canadian man, who had pleaded guilty to shooting a black bear in a national park, will pay a fine of C$7,500 after the judge rejected his “fear” of the predator as justification for bringing a loaded firearm on a popular hiking trail.

Serge Painchaud, 42, was this week fined for violating a hunting restriction under the National Parks Act.

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Brazil: Amazon deforestation drops 34% in first six months under Lula

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Government data shows marked reduction against same period last year, reversing trend of destruction during Bolsonaro reign

After four years of rising destruction in Brazil’s Amazon, deforestation dropped by 33.6% during the first six months of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s term, according to new government satellite data.

From January to June the rainforest had alerts covering 2,650 sq km (1,023 sq miles), down from 4,000 sq km –during the same period last year under former president Jair Bolsonaro. This year’s data includes a 41% plunge in alerts for June, which marks the start of the dry season when deforestation tends to jump.

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Paddleboarders in close brush with hammerhead shark off Florida coast

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Gabriel Barajas and Malea Tribble thought ‘it was all over for us’ – but marine expert suggests shark was merely being ‘inquisitive’

A pair of paddleboarders raising money for charity had a frightening encounter with a hammerhead shark that circled them near Florida’s coast – and the entire incident was caught on video.

Gabriel Barajas and Malea Tribble were paddling from Florida to the Bahamas, an 80-mile journey, to raise money for cystic fibrosis awareness, WJZY reported.

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Canadian judge rules thumbs-up emoji can represent contract agreement

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A Saskatchewan court rules emoji is just as valid as a signature and orders a farmer to pay $61,442 for unfulfilled contract

A Canadian judge has ruled that the “thumbs-up” emoji is just as valid as a signature, arguing that courts need to adapt to the “new reality” of how people communicate as he ordered a farmer to pay C$82,000 ($61,442) for an unfulfilled contract.

In a recent case the Court of King’s Bench in the province of Saskatchewan heard that a grain buyer with South West Terminal sent a mass text message to clients in March 2021, advertising that the company was looking to buy 86 tonnes of flax at a price of C$17 ($12.73) per bushel.

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Grey whales seen seeking human help to remove parasites

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Captain of tourist boat from Baja California, Mexico, says grey whales return repeatedly for ‘grooming’

Grey whales have learned to approach whale-watching boats to have parasites removed by human beings, it has been claimed.

Video footage documenting the behaviour in the Ojo de Liebre lagoon, off the coast of Baja California, Mexico, shows a grey whale having whale lice picked off its head by the captain of a small boat. “I have done it repeatedly with the same whale and others,” Paco Jimenez Franco told a US news site. “It is very exciting for me.”

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US warns against efforts to interfere with Guatemala election result

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Frontrunner Sandra Torres alleged votes were manipulated after centrist Bernardo Arevalo claimed surprise runner-up spot

The US has issued a warning over possible efforts to interfere with Guatemala’s presidential election result, after the country’s top court ordered ballots from the first-round vote be reviewed, setting up the potential for a recount.

US secretary of state Antony Blinken said Washington had endorsed findings from observers over the vote’s validity, and said undermining the outcome would be a “grave threat to democracy with far-reaching implications”.

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Will El Niño on top of global heating create the perfect climate storm?

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Rising temperatures in north Atlantic and drop in Antarctic sea ice prompt fears of widespread damage from extreme weather

“Very unusual”, “worrying”, “terrifying”, and “bonkers”; the reactions of veteran scientists to the sharp increase in north Atlantic surface temperatures over the past three months raises the question of whether the world’s climate has entered a more erratic and dangerous phase with the onset of an El Niño event on top of human-made global heating.

Since April, the warming appears to have entered a new trajectory. Meanwhile the area of global sea ice has dropped by more than 1 million sq km below the previous low.

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Judges ban Bolsonaro from running for office for eight years over ‘appalling lies’

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Former far-right leader will only be able to seek elected office again in 2030, when he will be 75

The political future of Brazil’s former president Jair Bolsonaro has been cast into doubt after electoral judges banned him from running for office for eight years for abusing his powers and peddling “immoral” and “appalling lies” during last year’s acrimonious election.

Five of the superior electoral court’s seven judges voted to banish the far-right radical, who relentlessly vilified the South American country’s democratic institutions during his unsuccessful battle to win a second term in power. Two voted against the decision.

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German travel agency criticized for tour of Panama’s deadly jungle migrant zone

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Travel startup says it doesn’t ‘holiday where people suffer’ but offers trek in Darién Gap known for dangerous migration routes

“We go where no one goes,” is Wandermut’s tagline, but one of the German tour agency’s packages has left people asking whether some places are better left unexplored.

The travel startup’s 10-day Panama Jungle Tour has been criticised across Latin America in recent weeks for offering tour packages in a region which is home to one of the world’s most dangerous migration routes.

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Hipólito Mora, vigilante crusader against Mexico’s drug cartels, killed in ambush

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One of the leaders of the violence-scarred country’s ‘self-defense’ movement was cut down in rural Michoacán

One of the founders of Mexico’s “self-defense” movement, the lime farmer turned vigilante crusader Hipólito Mora, has been murdered in an ambush – the latest macabre chapter in the country’s unabating crime conflict.

Guillermo Valencia, a politician from the violence-stricken state of Michoacán, where Mora helped launch a rural revolt against narco-traffickers 10 years ago, announced the news on Twitter.

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Inquisitive, beloved Canadian sex educator Sue Johanson dies aged 93

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Johanson was venerated as a forthright educator who filled voids left by the absence of sex ed curricula at US and Canadian schools

Sex educator Sue Johanson, who once declared that “horny is a beautiful thing”, has died at the age of 93 after more than two decades of giving frank advice to audiences in Canada and the US.

Johanson gained an international audience with her plainspoken guidance to Canadians on her radio and TV programme Sunday Night Sex Show – and then Americans on her Talk Sex programme.

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