Category Archives: Americas

US mountaineer buried by avalanche 22 years ago found preserved in ice, police say

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William Stampfl was trying to climb Mount Huascarán in 2002 with two friends, one who was found and one who is still missing

Police have found the well-preserved body of an American mountaineer who was buried by an avalanche 22 years ago as he tried to climb one of the highest peaks in the Andes.

Police in the Ancash region found the body of William Stampfl on Friday near a camp 5,200 meters (17,060 feet) above sea level. The 58-year-old Stampfl had been trying to climb the 6,768-meter Mount Huascarán.

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Alleged Bolsonaro-linked crime ring sold official luxury gifts worth $1.2m, Brazil police claim

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Report into ‘Jewellerygate’ scandal alleges former president involved in embezzlement of high-value gifts received from foreign leaders

Federal police investigators have claimed that a criminal group, allegedly involving Brazil’s former president Jair Bolsonaro, tried to illegally siphon off and sell luxury gifts from foreign leaders worth at least $1.2m.

The new claims came on Monday, three days after police formally accused the far-right politician of embezzlement, money laundering and criminal association and suggested he face criminal charges. If Bolsonaro is charged and convicted, those alleged crimes could reportedly land him in jail for a total of 25 years.

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Alice Munro knew my stepfather sexually abused me as a child, says Nobel laureate’s daughter

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Andrea Robin Skinner says her stepfather sexually assaulted her when she was nine, but her mother said she ‘loved him too much’ to leave him

The daughter of Nobel prize winner Alice Munro, Andrea Robin Skinner, has alleged that her stepfather sexually abused her as a child, and that her mother stayed with him even after he admitted to the abuse.

Skinner revealed the allegations in an essay and a news article in Canada’s Toronto Star on the weekend, writing about how her stepfather, Gerald Fremlin, began sexually assaulting her in 1976 when she was nine years old and he was in his 50s.

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Ecuador court rules pollution violates rights of a river running through capital

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Ruling, based on constitutional rights for natural features like Quito’s Machángara River, appealed by government

A ruling described by activists as “historic,” a court in Ecuador has ruled that pollution has violated the rights of a river that runs through the country’s capital, Quito.

The city government appealed the ruling, which is based on an article of Ecuador’s constitution that recognizes the rights of natural features like the Machángara River.

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Brazil apologises after three diplomats’ Black teenagers searched at gunpoint

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Ministry of foreign affairs forced to say sorry to Canada, Gabon and Burkina Faso embassies after incident

Brazil’s ministry of foreign affairs has been forced to apologise to the embassies of Canada, Gabon and Burkina Faso after three diplomats’ teenage children – all of whom are Black – were searched at gunpoint by police officers.

The incident emerged when the mother of a Brazilian boy in the group posted a security camera video online, prompting outrage – but also a weary recognition that such experiences are all too typical for Black youths in Rio de Janeiro.

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Tropical Storm Beryl smashes through Caribbean and heads for Texas coast

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Earliest category 5 hurricane on record is 495 miles south-east of Corpus Christi, with winds near 60mph

Tropical Storm Beryl, which has already smashed its way across the Caribbean as a hurricane before slamming into the Yucatán peninsula, is intensifying once again and expected to make landfall as a hurricane for the third time along the Texas coast.

The powerful hurricane – Beryl is the earliest category 5 hurricane on record – was by early Saturday approximately 495 miles (797km) south-east of Corpus Christi, Texas. The storm is forecast to turn toward the north-west later Saturday and then north/north-westward by Sunday night.

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Hurricane Beryl makes landfall in Mexico as category 2 storm and expected to reach Texas

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Hurricane warning issued for coast from Puerto Costa Maya to Cancún, including Cozumel, with coastal residents in Texas told to prepare

Hurricane Beryl has made landfall as a category 2 storm in Mexico’s top tourist destinations, triggering a red alert in the region following its deadly trail of destruction across several Caribbean islands.

The storm’s core shifted over the Yucatán, with winds slowing to approximately 100mph (160km/h) as it reached the north-eastern region of Tulum, famed for its white-sand beaches, lush landscapes and Mayan ruins.

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Ex-president of Brazil Jair Bolsonaro could face money-laundering charges

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Indictment, which includes embezzlement and criminal association charges, stems from a gift from Saudi Arabia

Brazil’s former president Jair Bolsonaro faces possible charges for money laundering, embezzlement and criminal association in connection with undeclared diamonds the far-right leader received from Saudi Arabia during his time in office, local media has reported.

Brazil’s supreme court has yet to receive the police report with the indictment. Once it does, the country’s prosecutor-general, Paulo Gonet, will analyze the document and decide whether to file charges and force Bolsonaro to stand trial.

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Hurricane Beryl barrels through Cayman Islands after battering Jamaica

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Category 3 storm with wind speeds of up to 120mph continues to wreak ‘utter devastation’ in Caribbean

Hurricane Beryl is barrelling through the Cayman Islands after causing death and destruction in Jamaica.

The British overseas territory is bearing the brunt of the hurricane, which has been causing “utter devastation” in the Caribbean since Monday, when it almost destroyed parts of Grenada and St Vincent and the Grenadines.

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After nine years in office, is it time for Justin Trudeau to go?

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After a shocking electoral upset the public is growing increasingly weary of his tenure – and of his Liberal party

A Canadian prime minister who has outstayed his welcome, persistent inflation, a government bumped and bruised by scandal and a fired-up opposition leader itching for a public showdown.

It was against this backdrop, four decades ago, that Pierre Trudeau took his apocryphal “walk in the snow” and decided not to contest the next federal election.

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Could Venezuela’s softly-spoken opposition newcomer end 25 years of Chavismo?

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Hopes rise that Edmundo González Urrutia can beat Nicolas Maduro on 28 July and lead the country out of a wretched decade

The road from Caracas to Guatire is lined with propaganda billboards glorifying President Nicolás Maduro and likening his political rivals to gangsters from the country’s most infamous criminal group. “They won’t defeat us,” the slogan declares.

But with less than a month until the economically fractured South American country holds its long-awaited presidential election on 28 July, some people are not persuaded.

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Hurricane Beryl hits Jamaica after leaving ‘Armageddon-like’ trail in Grenada

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Jamaican PM says worst is yet to come as category 4 storm hits southern coast after causing at least seven deaths in region

Hurricane Beryl has hit Jamaica after leaving an “Armageddon-like” trail of devastation in Grenada and St Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) and killing at least seven people across the region.

The category 4 storm hit the island’s southern coast on Wednesday afternoon with maximum sustained winds of 140mph (225km/h), pummeling communities and knocking out communications as emergency groups evacuated people in flood-prone communities.

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‘Please send help’: Caribbean reels from Hurricane Beryl devastation

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Homes flattened, apocalyptic scenes and at least four dead as St Vincent and the Grenadines and Grenada try to recover

This should have been a week of celebration in the Caribbean country of St Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG). The annual Vincy Mas carnival, which attracts thousands of tourists, had advertised a packed schedule of costume parades, soca competitions, and beauty pageants.

Instead, the Vincentian population is reeling from what the country’s prime minister has described as the “utter devastation” wrought by Hurricane Beryl, which ravaged the multi-island country and its eastern Caribbean neighbour Grenada.

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Ann Wilson, frontwoman of Heart, diagnosed with cancer

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Chart-topping singer cancels remainder of 2024 tour dates but says she hopes to return next year

Ann Wilson, the lead singer of rock band Heart, has announced that she has been diagnosed with cancer.

The 74-year-old wrote in an Instagram post: “I recently underwent an operation to remove something that, as it turns out, was cancerous. The operation was successful & I’m feeling great but my doctors are now advising me to undergo a course of preventive chemotherapy & I’ve decided to do it. And so my doctors are instructing me to take the rest of the year away from the stage in order to fully recover.”

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Four dead as category 5 Hurricane Beryl wreaks havoc across Caribbean

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With winds up to 160mph, the monster storm pushed through Grenada and is on track for Jamaica and the Yucatán peninsula

At least four people have died after Hurricane Beryl wreaked “almost complete destruction” on small and vulnerable islands in the Caribbean.

The monster hurricane, which is now barrelling towards Jamaica, has strengthened to category 5 status, which means it can achieve wind speeds of over 157mph (253km/h).

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New Cuban radar site near US military base could aid China spying – report

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CSIS calls site near Guantánamo a ‘powerful tool’ that will be able to monitor air and maritime activity of US military

Satellite images appear to show that Cuba is building a new radar site likely to be capable of spying on the US’s nearby Guantánamo Bay naval base, in the latest upgrade to the country’s surveillance capabilities long thought to be linked to China.

The base, under construction since 2021 but previously not publicly reported, is east of the city of Santiago de Cuba near the El Salao neighborhood, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) said in a report published on Monday and later referenced by the Wall Street Journal.

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Argentina’s president butts heads with South American leftist leaders

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Turning from his ferocious attacks on domestic opponents, Javier Milei aims his scorn at the heads of Brazil and Bolivia

On the campaign trail, Argentina’s showman president, Javier Milei, brandished a chainsaw to highlight plans for ferocious spending cuts. In office, the rightwinger has apparently decided to take the power tool to foreign relations as well.

In recent days, Milei has busied himself losing friends and alienating people with a series of verbal attacks on the leftwing leaders of Argentina’s two biggest neighbours, Bolivia and Brazil.

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Why Hurricane Beryl foretells a scary storm season

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Hot sea temperatures are fuelling explosive growth of first ever category 4 storm in June

Hurricane Beryl’s explosive growth into an unprecedented early whopper of a storm shows the literal hot water the Atlantic and Caribbean are in – and the kind of season ahead, experts said.

Beryl smashed multiple records even before its major-hurricane-level winds approached land. The powerful storm is acting more like monsters that form in the peak of hurricane season thanks mostly to water temperatures as hot or hotter than the region normally gets in September, five hurricane experts told the Associated Press.

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Panama to shut down Darién Gap route in deal that will see US pay to repatriate migrants

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New president José Raúl Mulino has vowed to close the route through which thousands of migrants travel to the US every year

The US will cover the costs of repatriating migrants who enter Panama illegally, under a deal agreed with the Central American country’s new president who has vowed to shut down the treacherous Darién Gap used by people travelling north to the United States.

In his first address as president, José Raúl Mulino promised to seek international assistance to find solutions to what he described as a costly “humanitarian and environmental crisis”.

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Air Europa plane diverts to Brazil after severe turbulence injures dozens

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About 40 passengers taken to hospitals after flight from Madrid to Montevideo forced to make emergency landing

An Air Europa flight from Madrid to Montevideo has been forced to make an emergency landing at a Brazilian airport due to “severe turbulence”, the airline said.

About 40 passengers, mostly with minor injuries, were taken to hospitals in Natal, the capital of Rio Grande do Norte state after the plane was diverted early on Monday.

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