Nayib Bukele re-elected as El Salvador president in landslide win

Voters reward Bukele for gang crackdown that has transformed security in central American country

El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, has won a thumping victory in elections after voters cast aside concerns about erosion of democracy to reward him for a fierce gang crackdown that transformed security in the central American country.

Provisional results on Monday morning showed Bukele winning 83% support with just over 70% of the ballots counted. Bukele declared himself the winner before official results were announced, claiming to have attained more than 85% of the vote.

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South Dakota tribe bans governor from reservation over US border comments

Oglala Sioux tribe banishes Republican Kristi Noem after she spoke about wanting to send razor wire to Texas

A South Dakota tribe has banned the state’s Republican governor, Kristi Noem, from one of the US’s largest reservations after she spoke this week about wanting to send razor wire and security personnel to Texas to help deter immigration at the southern border with Mexico.

The Oglala Sioux tribe president said Noem’s ban from the Pine Ridge reservation resulted from the fact that many arriving at the US border with Mexico are Indigenous people from places like El Salvador, Guatemala and Mexico, who come “in search of jobs and a better life”.

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‘Deeply alarming’: sevenfold increase in sexual attacks at Darién Gap, says Médecins Sans Frontières

More than half a million people made treacherous, weeklong trek in 2023, facing horrors including mass rapes by armed bandits

A sevenfold increase in sexual attacks against people crossing the Darién Gap is compounding the misery for people trekking one of the world’s most dangerous and underreported border crossings, said Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).

Complete impunity for armed gangs in the lawless stretch of jungle that links South and Central America meant one person became a victim of sexual violence every three and a half hours in December, the overstretched medical organisation said.

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At least 112 dead as authorities struggle to contain forest fires in Chile

People told to evacuate homes as quickly as possible and curfews declared in cities most heavily affected

Firefighters are wrestling with huge forest fires that broke out in central Chile on Friday. Officials have extended curfews in cities most heavily affected by the blazes and said the death toll has increased to 112 killed.

The fires have been burning with the highest intensity around the city of Viña del Mar, where a botanical garden founded in 1931 was destroyed by the flames. At least 1,600 people have been left without homes.

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Forest fires in Chile cause multiple deaths and widespread destruction

At least 46 people reported dead as dozens of fires sweep across central and southern regions, with Valparaíso worst affected

At least 46 people have died from forest fires raging in central Chile, President Gabriel Boric has said, warning that the death toll is likely to rise.

Earlier on Saturday, Chile’s interior minister, Carolina Tohá, said there were currently 92 forest fires in the centre and south of the country, where temperatures were unusually high. More than 1,000 homes have been destroyed.

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Aston ‘Family Man’ Barrett, bassist with Bob Marley and the Wailers, dies aged 77

Influential musician also co-produced group’s albums and mentored many Jamaican artists

Aston “Family Man” Barrett, bassist for Bob Marley and the Wailers, has died aged 77.

The news was confirmed on Saturday by Olivia Grange, Jamaica’s minister for culture, who wrote on X (formerly Twitter): “I share with you my deep regret at the passing of Aston Francis Barrett, popularly known as ‘Family Man’ or ‘Fams’ … He died at the University of Miami Hospital in Florida in the United States early this morning.”

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Argentina’s lower house votes for Javier Milei’s sweeping reform package

Far-right president’s measures aimed at tackling the country’s severe economic problems passed easily despite public protests

Argentina’s lower chamber of deputies has given overall approval to libertarian president Javier Milei’s sweeping “omnibus” reform bill in a vote on Friday after days of debate, paving the way for a decisive vote in the Senate.

The controversial reform package was approved on a vote of 144 votes in favour and 109 against.

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Raccoon plunges parts of Toronto into darkness after mishap at power utility

Mammal ‘made contact with equipment’, disrupting a subway line and shutting off water in latest escapade of city’s ‘trash pandas’

A lone Toronto raccoon was able to cut power to nearly 7,000 people in the city’s downtown core on Thursday night, highlighting the fraught coexistence between residents of Canada’s largest urban centre and the divisive “trash pandas”.

Hydro One, Ontario’s power utility, said a raccoon “made contact with equipment” at a downtown station on Thursday night, plunging swaths of the city in darkness. The loss of power also temporarily disrupted service on a key subway line and shut off water. Toronto’s fire service said the power outage also left residents trapped inside elevators.

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Indigenous reporter fears more journalists will be targeted after arrest as police cleared Canada camp

Brandi Morin was charged while reporting at encampment authorities arrived at to dismantle and could face two years in jail

A journalist in Canada who was arrested and charged while reporting on a police operation to clear an encampment for unhoused Indigenous people says she fears the charges will chill further reporting of marginalized groups.

Brandi Morin, an Indigenous journalist, was arrested on 10 January while documenting police efforts to dismantle the camp in the city of Edmonton.

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Murder charges upgraded for Canada man who allegedly sent ‘suicide kits’

Kenneth Law now faces 14 counts in Ontario of first-degree murder and 14 counts of counselling and aiding suicide

Prosecutors in Canada have upgraded murder charges against the man who allegedly mailed “suicide kits” and is allegedly linked to more than 100 deaths in several countries.

Kenneth Law, who is due to appear in court on Thursday, now faces 14 counts in Ontario of first-degree murder and 14 counts of counselling and aiding suicide in the province. Canada’s criminal code punishes anyone who “counsels or abets” a person to die by suicide with a sentence of up to 14 years in prison. The victims range in age from 16 to 36.

In Canada, Crisis Services Canada can be contacted at any time on 1.833.456.4566, or via text on 45645 from 4pm-12am ET. In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counselor. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org

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Machu Picchu train line reopens after protesters strike deal to readmit tourists

Access to Incan site in Peruvian Andes restored after dispute over new electronic rail ticketing system

Peruvian authorities have reopened the train route to Machu Picchu, after an agreement was struck to end more than a week of protests that had blocked access to the famed Incan site and stranded tourists.

PeruRail said in a statement a partial service had restarted on Wednesday and that a regular service would return on Thursday from the city of Cusco to Aguas Calientes, a town near the archaeological site.

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Fell off the back of an iceberg: stuffed 500lb polar bear stolen in Canada heist

Thieves haul off taxidermy animal from resort hotel in northern Alberta that had previously lost two stuffed raccoons

As temperatures in western Canada recently plunged to -30C, most residents retreated indoors to wait out the blistering cold snap. But one group of thieves saw opportunity.

On one of the coldest nights of the winter, they gained access to a hotel north of Edmonton, where security patrols had been cancelled because of the weather.

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Machu Picchu tourists stranded as protesters block trains to site

Train services suspended due to safety concerns as people demonstrate against Peru’s consolidation of ticket sales

Protesters in Peru are blocking access to Machu Picchu, leaving some tourists stranded amid local anger over a new ticketing system halting rail transport to one of South America’s most popular heritage sites.

Train services to the ancient ruins high up in the Andes have been suspended since Saturday due to safety concerns over demonstrators blocking the railway line. Travel links were still not reopened on Monday, two tour operators told Reuters.

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‘Let’s find out’: shipwreck mysteriously appears on Newfoundland coast

Residents of tiny coastal community of Cape Ray excited by discovery of what appears to be 19th-century vessel

A coastal community in Newfoundland has been left baffled and excited by the sudden and unexplained appearance of a centuries-old shipwreck on the sands of a nearby shore.

Gordon Blackmore, a local resident, was hunting seabirds on the sandy shores of Cape Ray when he spotted a dark shadow under the turbid waters. It had not been there when he visited the spot just a few days earlier. He rushed back into the family home, shouting about about the discovery, his mother told the Canadian Press. She grabbed her jacket and hurried to the beach to see it for herself. “It’s amazing, there is no other word for it.”

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Police raid villa of Jair Bolsonaro as part of spying investigation

Ex-president’s family retreat targeted early on Monday as nine search warrants executed in other parts of the country

Brazilian police have raided the holiday home of former president Jair Bolsonaro as part of an expanding investigation into an illegal spying racket that allegedly existed during his far-right government.

Federal police officers reportedly arrived at Bolsonaro’s family retreat in Mambucaba, a picturesque seaside village 126 miles west of Rio, early on Monday morning as nine search warrants were executed in different parts of the country.

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Jack Russell terrier who loves to surf makes a splash on beaches of Peru

Four-year-old dog named Efruz ‘loves the sea’, according to his owner, and often perches on a surfboard to ride waves

Clad in a yellow vest, little Efruz balances himself on the front of the surfboard as waves foam around him and his companion as they skim over the Pacific waters off Peru.

Efruz is a four-year-old Jack Russell terrier and he is a common sight these hot days of the southern hemisphere summer.

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Fight over border intensifies as Texas governor pledges more razor wire

Greg Abbott says he will defy Biden and US supreme court and install more concertina wire to try to prevent migrant crossings

The fight between Texas and the federal government over the control of the US-Mexico border has further intensified after state governor Greg Abbott announced he will defy the Biden administration and US supreme court by ordering the installation of even more razor wire to deter migration.

On Monday, the supreme court voted 5-4 in favor of the federal government’s power to remove the controversial concertina wire installed along stretches of the border in Texas, at Abbott’s direction. Despite this, Abbott, a hard-right Republican, is intensifying his plans to try and fence off parts of the US border with Mexico.

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UK ditches post-Brexit Canada trade talks; Vodafone and Three UK merger under investigation – as it happened

Live, rolling coverage of business, economics and financial markets as Canada says UK was unwilling to give access to agricultural products

Shares in US chipmaker Intel have slumped in pre-market trading after it revealed a weaker forecast of earnings.

Chipmakers have been flying in recent years as shortages followed by the huge hype over artificial intelligence – which is hungry for processing power – prompted investors to pile into the sector.

Although Intel beat estimates, investors’ disappointment in Intel’s datacentre GPU story’s growth can be primarily attributed to the slower-than-expected product delivery and ramp-up.

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Kenya high court rules against plan to deploy hundreds of police to Haiti

Judge says UN-backed proposals to tackle gangs in Caribbean country contravene Kenya’s constitution

Kenya’s high court has ruled against a government plan to deploy hundreds of police to Haiti to lead a UN-backed multinational mission to fight escalating gang violence in the Caribbean country.

Enock Chacha Mwita, the judge who issued the ruling, said: “Any decision by any state organ or state officer to deploy police officers to Haiti … contravenes the constitution and the law and is therefore unconstitutional, illegal and invalid.”

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BHP and Vale ordered to pay $15bn in damages for 2015 Brazil dam collapse

Mining companies and their joint venture Samarco ordered by Brazilian judge to pay AU$14.7bn over disaster that killed 19 people

A Brazilian judge has ruled that mining companies Vale and BHP and their joint venture Samarco must pay 47.6bn reais (AU$14.7 bn) in damages for a 2015 tailings dam burst, according to a legal decision seen by Reuters.

Vale, a Brazilian company, and BHP, an Australian listed company, said in separate statements they were not informed by the judiciary about the decision.

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