Category Archives: Americas

Fans queue round the block as tiny Mexican taco stand wins Michelin star

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There was more business than usual and some bemused regulars after El Califa de León was rewarded for its ‘exceptional’ offering

El Califa de León, an unassuming taco joint in Mexico City, measures just 3 metres by 3 metres and has space for only about six people to stand at a squeeze. Locals usually wait for 5 minutes between ordering and picking up their food.

All that changed on Wednesday, however, when it became the first Mexican taco stand ever to win a Michelin star, putting it in the exalted company of fine dining restaurants around the world, and drawing crowds like it has never seen.

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Teen who texted 911 rescued after she was trafficked to California from Mexico

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In texts received in Spanish and translated to English, the girl tried to describe her location, though she did not know where she was

Authorities rescued a 17-year old girl after she was trafficked to Ventura county, California, from Mexico two months ago and texted 911 for help.

On Thursday, the Ventura county sheriff’s office announced that on 9 May authorities rescued the girl after she sent messages to 911. The text message correspondence began with a call taker at a 911 communication center, according to the sheriff’s office, which added that the messages were received in Spanish and translated into English.

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Mayoral candidate and five others killed in shooting at campaign rally in Mexico

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Young girl was among six people killed in gunfire in an area of Chiapas where shootings have become common and widespread

A mayoral candidate and five other people have been killed when gunmen opened fire at a campaign rally in the violence-racked southern Mexico state of Chiapas.

State prosecutors said a young girl was among the six people killed in the gunfire late on Thursday, along with the mayoral candidate Lucero López Maza. Two others were injured, they said.

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Buenos Aires metro fare jumps 360% amid Argentina’s harsh austerity measures

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Libertarian president Javier Milei has slashed public spending as he wrestles to tame hyperinflation, now at 289% annually

Commuters in Buenos Aires have been hit by an overnight 360% increase in subway fares, in one of the most dramatic price hikes in a harsh budget austerity campaign launched by Argentina’s libertarian president, Javier Milei.

After weeks of hearings, a judge on Thursday lifted an order that had temporarily blocked the scheduled increase in subway fares. That cleared the way for the change to take effect on Friday morning as office workers across Buenos Aires streamed through the turnstiles of South America’s oldest underground metro.

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Honduran city’s air pollution is almost 50 times higher than WHO guidelines

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San Pedro Sula is rated ‘dangerous’ as effects of forest fires, El Niño and the climate crisis cause a spike in respiratory illnesses

The air quality in San Pedro Sula, the second-largest city in Honduras, as been classified as the most polluted on the American continent due to forest fires and weather conditions aggravated by El Niño and the climate crisis.

IQAir, a Swiss air-quality organisation that draws data from more than 30,000 monitoring stations around the world, said on Thursday that air quality in the city of about 1 million people has reached “dangerous” levels.

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Painting by surrealist painter Leonora Carrington fetches $28m at auction

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Late British painter’s Les Distractions de Dagobert, ‘the apotheosis of Carrington’s oeuvre’, was inspired by Hieronymus Bosch

The auction record for British surrealist Leonora Carrington was smashed at Sotheby’s in New York on Wednesday night, marking a new high point for the artist, who lived in Mexico for most of her life and was until her death in 2011 one of the last surviving participants of the surrealist movement of the 1930s.

Carrington’s 1945 painting Les Distractions de Dagobert was auctioned for $28m with fees, soaring over a presale estimate of $12m-$18m after 10 minutes of bidding. The sum fetched is nine times Carrington’s previous auction record of $3.2m.

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Activists blame Argentina’s government after three gay women killed in arson attack

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Four women were set on fire in Buenos Aires in alleged hate crime as demonstrators accuse Milei of promoting intolerance

Activists in Argentina have accused the country’s far-right government of stoking homophobia after an alleged hate crime in which four gay women were set on fire, killing three and seriously injuring the fourth.

A man in his 60s is alleged to have thrown burning rags into the women’s shared bedroom of a boarding house in Buenos Aires early on 6 May.

The headline to this article was amended on 15 May 2024. A previous version incorrectly stated four women were killed.

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Manahahtáanung or Manhattan? Tribal representatives call for apology for Dutch settlement of New York City

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As new exhibition opens in Amsterdam exploring the settlement of North America, original Manhattanites demand apology

Representatives for some of the Lenape people have called for an apology and reparations for the 17th-century Dutch “settling” of New Amsterdam, the place that is now New York.

Precisely four centuries after the Dutch established a colony at the mouth of the Hudson River, some descendants of Indigenous Americans believe it is time for a fuller story of the wars on their people, slavery, exploitation and dispersal.

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No internet, no phone: Canada wildfires expose fragility of rural infrastructure

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Remote communities suffer total loss of communications after fires damage critical fibre optic cables

Shortly before sunset on Friday, residents of Canada’s Yukon territory discovered their connection to the outside world had vanished. Internet access had gone. Mobile phones showed no signal. Landlines had failed.

Chaos quickly set in. Electronic payments couldn’t be processed. In Whitehorse, the capital, most ATMs couldn’t function and the few that did were quickly drained of cash from panicked residents. City officials warned that the ability to call police, ambulance or fire services was non-existent.

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Burberry profits slump by 40% as demand for luxury goods slows

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British fashion retailer hit by drop in sales in Asia and Americas, and expects challenging first half of 2025

Burberry’s profits have slumped by 40% in a year amid a wider slowdown in demand for luxury goods that has pushed down sales in Asia and the Americas.

The high-end UK fashion retailer posted a pre-tax profit of £383m for the year up to 30 March in its preliminary results on Wednesday, a 40% drop on the £634m in the previous 12 months. Global sales fell by 8% in the second half of the year.

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Canada city devastated by 2016 wildfire faces evacuations as new blaze nears

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Residents of suburbs in Fort McMurray ordered to leave as officials monitor a fire nearby that has grown to cover 9,600 hectares

Residents of four suburbs in the Canadian city of Fort McMurray have been ordered to evacuate as a wildfire approaches the city, stirring grim reminders of the country’s costliest natural disaster.

Officials in the western province of Alberta issued evacuation orders for the neighbourhoods of Beacon Hill, Abasand, Prairie Creek and Grayling Terrace on Tuesday, telling all residents to leave by 4pm MT.

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British Columbia to bar those guilty of serious crimes from changing names

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Health minister makes announcement following revelations that a man who killed his children legally changed his name

Canada’s westernmost province has says it will stop people who committed serious crimes from changing their names, following revelations that a child-killer tried to keep his new identity secret.

British Columbia’s health minister said on Monday his government would introduce legislation to amend the province’s name act.

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British Columbia ‘extremely concerned’ as wildfire threatens to destroy town

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Out-of-control Parker Lake fire, which has already forced thousands to evacuate, bears down on Fort Nelson

Officials in western Canada were bracing for “volatile wildfire activity” on Monday as an out-of-control blaze, which has already forced the evacuation of thousands, threatened to destroy a northern British Columbia town.

The province’s wildfire service said the blaze was burning just 2km (1.2 miles) north-west of Fort Nelson, which has already seen about 3,500 people evacuated from there after an order to leave was issued on Friday.

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Weather tracker: Geomagnetic storms trigger northern lights

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Strong solar flares produce breathtaking displays across Europe and the US, with southern lights illuminating skies in New Zealand

Night skies were lit up around the world by a spectacular display of the northern lights on Friday, with sightings seen widely across Europe, the US and even New Zealand (as the southern lights). The lights occur when charged particles emitted from the sun reach the Earth’s atmosphere and collide with gases around the magnetic poles triggering breathtaking night-time auroras.

In the US, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) issued a “severe” G4 geomagnetic storm event, but by Friday evening it announced conditions had reached “extreme” G5 levels, the highest level on the space weather scale, for the first time since October 2003.

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Brother and lawyer of Peru president held as corruption inquiry widens

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Dina Boluarte, caught up in ‘Rolexgate scandal’, denies accepting watches in exchange for favours amid police raids on key allies

Police in Peru have detained the brother and the lawyer of the country’s embattled president, Dina Boluarte, as part of a widening corruption inquiry, weeks after a similar raid on the Peruvian leader’s home.

Boluarte’s brother Nicanor and her lawyer Mateo Castañeda were placed under preliminary detention on Friday, accused of influence trafficking and belonging to a criminal organisation. Six other people were also detained.

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Vulnerable Biden tries to straddle both sides with new asylum rules

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The president is under pressure from Republicans and progressives as humanitarian crisis builds and immigration remains a key voter issue

The Biden administration has said its proposed changes to asylum standards, unveiled on Thursday, that would fast-track some deportation will enhance security and speed up a backlog of cases amid record numbers of arrivals at the US-Mexico border.

The changes will also, by Biden’s own admission, be limited in scope and only affect a “small” number of people who have been convicted of serious crimes or may pose a national security risk.

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Brazil floods: horse stranded on roof is rescued as death toll rises to 107 people

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Animal dubbed ‘Caramelo’ was trapped for days, balancing on two strips of slippery asbestos after flooding hit the Porto Alegre area

Emergency workers have rescued a horse that had been trapped for days on a rooftop after severe floods in southern Brazil, as the death toll from the disaster rose to 107 people.

The animal, dubbed Caramelo on social media, had been balancing on two narrow strips of slippery asbestos in Canoas, a city in the Porto Alegre metropolitan area that is one of the hardest-hit areas in the state, much of which has been isolated by floodwaters.

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Spanish investigation into Shakira’s alleged tax evasion dropped

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Court says irregularities in Colombian singer’s 2018 tax return did not indicate intent to defraud

A Spanish court has shelved an investigation into an alleged tax fraud by the Colombian pop star Shakira, putting an end to her legal woes in the country where she once lived.

Prosecutors had opened the case in July, alleging she had used a network of companies, some in tax havens, to cheat the tax office out of €6.6m (£5.7m) in 2018.

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Man arrested for attempted break-in at Drake’s Toronto mansion

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Incident comes the day after a shooting outside the rapper’s home in which a security guard was seriously injured

A man has been arrested after trying to gain access to Drake’s Toronto mansion, the day after a security guard at the property was seriously injured in a shooting.

“Officers were called after a person attempted to gain access to the property,” Toronto police said in a statement. “The person was apprehended under the Mental Health Act, and they were taken to receive medical attention.”

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Nicaragua cancels Chinese plan for controversial canal 10 years on

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Critics said proposal to build canal linking Atlantic and Pacific would endanger environment and rural communities

Nearly a decade after it broke ground on a controversial plan to build a canal linking the Atlantic and the Pacific, Nicaragua has canceled a concession granted to a Chinese businessman to complete the project which critics said would endanger the environment and displace rural communities.

Despite a symbolic “ground-breaking” in 2014, no work was done on the canal that was to link Nicaragua’s Atlantic and Pacific coasts. At one point, crews broke ground on access roads near the canal but digging the waterway never started.

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