The total number of those aboard remains unclear although 31 have been rescued; the incident is the latest in a string across the region
Eleven people were killed and dozens were rescued after a boat capsized near Puerto Rico on Thursday, authorities said.
It was not immediately clear how many people were onboard the boat when it turned over, said a US coast guard spokesman, Ricardo Castrodad. He said a “mass rescue effort” was still under way.
Continue reading...Francisca Sandoval, 29, is the first journalist to be killed in the line of duty in Chile since the Pinochet dictatorship
A Chilean journalist who was shot in the head by a street trader while covering Workers’ Day marches on 1 May has died of her injuries.
Francisca Sandoval, 29, was reporting in Barrio Meiggs, a ramshackle market district in the centre of the capital, Santiago, when a group of men opened fire after a standoff with the marchers.
Continue reading...Breakaway ice waters caused floodwaters to surge near Hay River, with 4,000 residents at risk
All 4,000 inhabitants of a small town in Canada’s Northwest Territories have been ordered to evacuate as parts of the country struggle with some of the worst flooding in decades.
Chief April Martel of the Kátł’odeeche First Nation ordered her entire community to leave Hay River after breakaway ice sent floodwaters surging into the centre of the town on Wednesday.
Continue reading...President Rodrigo Chaves establishes emergency commission as one of his first acts amid attacks by Russian-speaking gang
After a month of crippling ransomware attacks, Costa Rica has declared a state of emergency invoking a measure usually reserved to deal with natural disasters or the Covid-19 pandemic to allow the government to react more nimbly to the crisis.
President Rodrigo Chaves, who was sworn in on Sunday, made the emergency declaration one of his first acts. It was published on Wednesday, but Chaves has not named the members of the National Emergency Commission.
Continue reading...Peruvian writer criticises incumbent’s ‘clowning around’ but says he is still preferable to former president
The Nobel prize-winning author Mario Vargas Llosa, Latin America’s most eminent living chronicler of power and corruption, has declared a preference for Jair Bolsonaro over Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva as Brazil prepares to head to the polls later this year.
The 86-year-old Peruvian writer, who also holds Spanish citizenship, revealed his thoughts on October’s election during a talk in Uruguay on Wednesday.
Continue reading...Thousands of locals in Miramichi, New Brunswick, have been swept up in the hunt – and Friday’s clue promises $1,300
It started in early May with a post on a Facebook page for second-hand goods in the Canadian town of Miramichi, New Brunswick. A hundred Canadian dollars had been hidden somewhere near the town’s harbour, it said.
The following days brought more clues for other locations. Some made sense. Most were maddeningly vague.
Continue reading...Shooting of Marcelo Pecci in front of his wife decried by Paraguayan president as ‘cowardly murder’
A Paraguayan public prosecutor who led a string of high-profile cases against organised crime and drug trafficking has been shot dead as he honeymooned on a Colombian beach.
Marcelo Pecci married Claudia Aguilera, a well-known journalist, on 30 April and they were spending their honeymoon at a hotel on the Barú peninsula on Colombia’s Caribbean coast.
Continue reading...Critics argue laws are being misused to punish the poor but experts say cases represent country’s failure to care for its most vulnerable citizens
After pleading unsuccessfully for affordable housing to help ease her chronic health condition, a Canadian woman ended her life in February under the country’s assisted-suicide laws. Another woman, suffering from the same condition and also living on disability payments, has nearly reached final approval to end her life.
The two high-profile cases have prompted disbelief and outrage, and shone a light on Canada’s right-to-die laws, which critics argue are being misused to punish the poor and infirm. In late April, the Spectator ran a story with the provocative headline: Why is Canada euthanising the poor?
Continue reading...Activists say case offers a stark warning to women in the US, where the supreme court is considering overturning Roe v Wade
A court in El Salvador has sentenced a woman who suffered a miscarriage to 30 years in prison for aggravated homicide, in a case which activists said offers a stark warning to women in the United States, where the supreme court is considering overturning a key ruling which legalized abortion.
The woman, identified only as “Esme”, was sentenced on Monday, after nearly two years under pre-trial detention, following her arrest when she sought medical care in a public hospital.
Continue reading...Former president Juan Orlando Hernández’s also suggests he may seek testimony from Mexican drug lord El Chapo in New York trial
Former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández has pleaded not guilty in a New York court to drug and weapons charges as his lawyer pledged to subpoena three former US presidents – and an imprisoned Mexican drug lord – to testify in his defence.
Hernández, who was extradited last month, wore shackles round his ankles at his arraignment in Manhattan on Tuesday, where he pleaded not guilty to three criminal counts, including conspiracy to import cocaine and weapons possession.
Continue reading...Saber Lahmar has been charged with encouraging jihadists to fight for Islamic State in Iraq and Syria
An Algerian preacher who spent eight years in the US-run Guantánamo Bay prison has gone on trial in France for allegedly encouraging several young men to join the Islamic State group.
Saber Lahmar, a 52-year-old Algerian released by the US in 2008 and taken in afterwards by France, has been charged with encouraging jihadists to head to Iraq and Syria to fight for the extremist group in 2015.
Continue reading...Liberal Shafqat Ali promises never to repeat ‘this error’ after fellow MP deplores affront to ‘cathedral of Canadian democracy’
A Canadian lawmaker has apologized after he was caught logging on to a closed parliamentary session from a toilet stall.
Liberal party member Shafqat Ali participated in a hybrid session of parliament last Friday, joining with a Zoom-like feed visible only to other parliamentarians. But Conservative members grew suspicious of his surroundings.
Continue reading...The president has been accused of failing to address the wave of violence and has been incessant with his attacks on reporters
The unrelenting slaughter of Mexican journalists has continued after two more newspeople were gunned down by unidentified assassins – taking the 2022 death toll to 11 in what is the deadliest country for media professionals outside a warzone.
Yesenia Mollinedo Falconi and Sheila Johana García Olivera were murdered in the town of Cosoleacaque, about 350 miles east of the capital Mexico City, around 3pm on Monday.
Continue reading...Sixth deadly prison massacre in country fueled by rival drug gangs since the beginning of 2021, bringing death toll to nearly 400
Scores of inmates are feared dead in Ecuador after a deadly prison riot broke out between rival drugs gangs, in the latest bloody episode of a wave of violence that has engulfed the country’s prisons.
Forty-three prisoners were confirmed dead on Monday as more than 200 police commandos retook control of the maximum-security wing of the Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas prison, about two hours drive from the capital Quito, but the death-toll is likely to rise.
Continue reading...Otoniel’s Gulf Clan militiamen shut down northern regions, blocking roads and holding residents hostage in their houses
Jorge, a community activist from Colombia’s conflict-ridden Chocó province, was already traveling to the city of Medellín when he heard news that made him turn back towards home.
Paramilitary militiamen in balaclavas and military fatigues had thrown up a string of roadblocks and declared an “armed strike”, torching vehicles, forcing businesses to close, and stopping all traffic.
Continue reading...Painting by Canadian folk artist Maud Lewis traded for a meal at Irene and Tony Demas’s restaurant could fetch C$35,000
Working out of the kitchen of their small restaurant in Ontario in the 1970s, Irene Demas and her husband Tony soon learned the value of trading their dishes for the talents of local bakers, craftspeople and artisans.
“Everyone supported everyone back then,” said Irene, at the time a bright-eyed chef in her 20s. In exchange for daily fresh flowers, for example, the couple would take soup and a sandwich to the florist next door.
Continue reading...Leftwinger tells rally that public must unite against far-right incumbent’s ‘incompetence and authoritarianism’
Brazil’s former leader Luiz Inació Lula da Silva has kickstarted what he hopes will be a sensational finale to one of Latin America’s most extraordinary political careers, publicly declaring his intention to challenge Jair Bolsonaro for the presidency and urging citizens to unite against the far-right populist’s “incompetence and authoritarianism”.
Speaking at a rally in São Paulo, where the one-time lathe operator began his spectacular rise to power as a union leader more than four decades ago, Lula publicly spelled out his ambition to reclaim the presidency for the first time.
Continue reading...Climate analysts are astounded by such a high reading during the rainy season, and is the third monthly record this year
Deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon surged to record levels for the month of April, nearly doubling the area of forest removed in that month last year – the previous April record – preliminary government data has shown, alarming environmental campaigners.
In the first 29 days of April, deforestation in the region totalled 1,012.5 square km (390 square miles), according to data from national space research agency Inpe on Friday. The agency, which has compiled the monthly data series since 2015/2016, will report data for the final day of April next week.
Continue reading...Cuban president Miguel Díaz-Canel says explosion at Hotel Saratoga appears to have been caused by a gas leak
At least 26 people have been killed and a further 74 have been treated in hospital after a powerful explosion tore the façade from a hotel in the Cuban capital, sending plumes of dust into the air and leaving rubble strewn across the street in the historic centre of Havana.
Speaking at the scene soon afterwards, the Cuban president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, ruled out a bomb and said the blast at the Hotel Saratoga appeared to have been caused by a gas leak.
Continue reading...Homicide investigators are trying to identify the child, whose cause of death is not yet known
Police in Canada are trying to identify a young Black girl whose body was found in a Toronto dumpster, a grim discovery that has shaken the city and seasoned investigators looking into the case.
The Toronto police service announced on Thursday that the body, discovered on Monday in an affluent neighbourhood, was that of a young Black girl, believed to be between the ages of four and seven.
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