Jailed members of Brazil’s most powerful drug gang killed 31 inmates at a penitentiary on Friday, decapitating and cutting out the hearts of most of them, in revenge for a separate prison massacre that left 56 dead this week. The bloodletting in the Monte Cristo prison in the Amazonian state of Roraima, carried out by members of the First Capital… Read more »
Brazil’s Supreme Court voted Wednesday to leave Senate President Renan Calheiros in his powerful leadership post, raising hopes economic overhauls making their way through Congress can be approved. Calheiros had defied a preliminary high court order issued Monday to stand down as Senate leader following his indictment on embezzlement charges, sparking a constitutional crisis that had put the country on… Read more »
A secret CIA assessment has found that Russia sought to tip last month’s US presidential election in Donald Trump’s favor, The Washington Post reported Friday, a conclusion that drew an extraordinary rebuke from the president-elect’s camp. “These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction,” Trump’s transition team said, launching a broadside against the spy… Read more »
The late leftist leader Fidel Castro’s dying wish was that his name and image not succumb to a cult following or blind idolatry in Cuba, but it remains to be seen if the country can respect that request. In a final, mass tribute to the leader of the Cuban revolution, President Raul Castro announced that his brother and predecessor had… Read more »
Bolivian authorities detained on Tuesday the chief executive of airline LaMia, the owner of the plane that crashed last week in Colombia and killed nearly all of Brazil’s Chapecoense soccer team, prosecutors said. Gustavo Vargas, the chief executive, and two other employees of the tiny Bolivia-based charter airline were taken to a prosecutor’s office in Santa Cruz for up to… Read more »
The Colombian government and FARC rebels on Thursday signed a revised version of a historic peace agreement. The guerrilla army has made several important concessions, but opponents of President Juan Manuel Santos continue to reject the new accord. Representatives of both sides worked quickly to amend the peace deal in Havana, which has taken more than four years of arduous… Read more »
Revolutionary hero or egotistical despot? Fidel Castro is viewed wildly differently depending on who — and where — you ask. Fidel Castro, whose death was announced Friday night on Cuban television by his brother, President Raul Castro, ruled over the island nation for half a century. During that time he was seen as both an inspiration by liberation movements and… Read more »
A California senator introduced legislation Tuesday to rid the United States of its Electoral College, the system that allowed Donald Trump to win the presidency despite Hillary Clinton’s lead of nearly one million votes. The measure comes amid calls for reform following last Tuesday’s presidential upset, but is a long-shot. “This is the only office in the land where you… Read more »
MEXICO CITY — For Mexico, the nightmare came true. Perhaps no country aside from the United States itself had as much at stake in the American presidential election as Mexico did. Then on Wednesday, it watched as the American people elected Donald J. Trump to be their next president, bringing to power a candidate whose central promises have included building… Read more »