News

One of the busiest trade ports on the U.S.-Mexico border remained effectively closed Wednesday as frustration and traffic snarls mounted over orders by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott requiring extra inspections of commercial trucks as part of the Republican’s sprawling border security operation.

Some National Civilian Police commanders in El Salvador have been pressuring their officers to meet daily arrest quotas as part of the government’s crackdown on street gangs that have yielded more than 10,000 arrests, a police union said Tuesday.

Analysts in Mexico said Monday that President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s successful push to hold the weekend’s recall vote could, paradoxically, leave Mexico’s democracy weaker. His Morena party used illegal, old-style electioneering tactics to get out the vote for what was a largely symbolic vote.

Act 85 of 2018 vowed to specify how much the government invests in its students, but four years after it was enacted, directors, parents, and teachers are playing a guessing game on the resources their schools count on since the Department of Education still doesn’t have a clear and transparent process to calculate the cost per student.

On Monday, the workers at El Milagro announced several campaign victories, including wage increases totaling approximately $1.3 million, anti-sexual harassment training for managers, and air conditioning in the lunchrooms. But not all of the workers’ demands have been met, and the company disputes their claims.

Ever since restrictions were placed on remittances to Cuba in October 2020, people living in the United States have scrambled to maintain the flow of money and necessities —including medicines— to their loved ones on the island, either through formal or informal channels.

Fewer than two of every 10 eligible Mexican voters bothered to cast ballots Sunday on whether their popular president should end his six-year term barely midway through or continue to the end, according to the National Electoral Institute’s initial statistical estimate.

Latinos are more likely than non-Latinos to endorse the benefits of “healthy eating habits” and a “healthy lifestyle,” as well as use technology to manage their health, but they suffer persistent disparities in terms of receiving healthcare, according to a recent study by Klick Health and ThinkNow.

A major blackout last week left more than 1.5 million clients —including households, businesses, and schools— without electricity, and over 160,000 without water. Authorities reported on Sunday morning that electricity had been restored to almost all clients.

Restaurant Associates, the company that manages Senate cafeteria workers, confirmed on Friday that the layoffs announced a week ago have been canceled.

The people of Colombia are resisting the country’s recent slide into violence and the stigma of recalling past violence, summed up by an exhibition launched by the Historical Memory District Center whose central message is: “Resisto, luego existo” (I resist, therefore I exist).

On Tuesday, March 29, a new anti-choice abortion bill was passed by a Senate commission in Puerto Rico that limits abortions to 22 weeks. Rushed to approval without public hearings, the bill has drawn outrage from the public, female politicians, and medical professionals.

A look at the moments during and after Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s nomination to the Supreme Court was confirmed by a 53-47 vote in the Senate, making her the first Black woman to sit on the nation’s highest court.

On Tuesday, President Nayib Bukele ordered changes to the Penal Code that press advocates warn censor journalism about gangs and would impede news outlets from questioning the official narrative on issues such as security policy and the government’s secret negotiations with the gangs.

More than a million customers in Puerto Rico remained without electricity on Thursday after a fire at a main power plant caused the biggest blackout so far this year across the U.S. territory, forcing it to cancel classes and shutter government offices.

El Salvador’s Congress, pushing further in the government’s dramatic crackdown on gangs, has authorized prison sentences of 10 to 15 years for news media that reproduce or disseminate messages from the gangs, alarming press freedom groups.

Cuban boxers will be allowed to fight professionally for the first time since the 1960s under a deal with a Mexican promoter, officials said.

Speaking at a graduation ceremony for new police officers and soldiers, President Nayib Bukele said that if the gangs “unleash a wave of crimes, we are going to cut off food in the prisons.”

On Friday, workers at the Dirksen Café were told by management that there would be mass layoffs on April 15. The workers tell Latino Rebels that 81 employees of Restaurant Associates, the federal contractor that runs the Senate cafeterias, are on the chopping block.

The ground shook at the instant the voice of Mexican music star Alejandro Fernández collided with the deafening cheers of fans gathered for his first concert in Venezuela in over a decade. Prominent artists are returning to stages in the South American country this year after leaving it out of tours for years.

Economist Rodrigo Chaves won Sunday’s presidential election ahead of ex-President José María Figueres (1994-1998). The anti-establishment candidate and former World Bank official is popular among voters who reject traditional politics and grew concerned over the country’s national debt.