Latin America

MEXICO CITY (AP) — One of Mexico’s best-known protest singers, Óscar Chávez, died Thursday at age 85 after being infected with the coronavirus.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Puerto Rico is taking its first tentative steps in relaxing a nearly two-month lockdown for the coronavirus pandemic, while health experts warn that the U.S. territory is relying on faulty statistics and has not yet seen its peak of cases.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration has finalized an agreement with Honduras that would allow some people seeking asylum in the United States to be sent to the Central American country instead.

Approximately 1,500 complaints have been fielded, with 60 percent of domestic violence cases occurring in densely populated cities.

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — Sealing some Salvadoran prisoners’ cells with sheet metal is a draconian measure sure to draw accusations of human rights violations, but President Nayib Bukele circulated photos of the cell modifications himself, counting on the support of a population traumatized by gang violence.

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro yielded Wednesday to growing criticism around his nomination of a new federal police chief seen as too close to his family, revoking the controversial appointment just hours after it was temporarily suspended by the Supreme Court.

Supreme Court Justice José Celso de Mello stated in his decision on Monday night that the Federal Police have 60 days to question former Justice Minister Sérgio Moro, who resigned last Friday, and accused Bolsonaro of trying to interfere in the country’s Federal Police.

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Nicaragua’s government has not only failed to enforce laws that protect its indigenous peoples and their communal lands, but is actively promoting illegal land grabs and granting concessions to mining and timber companies, according to a report released Wednesday.

LIMA, Peru (AP) — Prisoners in Peru staged a riot to protest their precarious living conditions following the deaths of several fellow inmates from the new coronavirus, but the revolt in itself proved fatal, with nine prisoners winding up dead, authorities said.

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — As Brazil careens toward a full-blown public health emergency and economic meltdown, President Jair Bolsonaro has managed to add a third ingredient to the toxic mix: political crisis. Even if it doesn’t speed his downfall, it will render Brazilians more vulnerable to the pandemic.

The current situation of a global pandemic invites reconsideration of similar situations that happened in the past, such as the great plague in Europe in the 14th century, or the successive and devastating influenza and measles epidemics (amongst others) which decimated indigenous populations in the post-Columbian era in Latin America, and especially in the Amazon.

The National Liberation Army (ELN) announced yesterday that they will resume military activity on Friday after a month-long ceasefire.

MEXICO CITY (AP) — The coronavirus pandemic has upended the lives of many of Latin America’s household maids, leaving them without work or government assistance or effectively trapping them inside the homes of their employers because of government-ordered lockdowns.

Dead bodies are lying at home and in the streets of Guayaquil, Ecuador, a city so hard-hit by coronavirus that overfilled hospitals are turning away even very ill patients and funeral homes are unavailable for burial.

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Brazil is emerging as potentially the next big hot spot for the coronavirus amid President Jair Bolsonaro’s insistence that it is just a “little flu” and that there is no need for the sharp restrictions that have slowed the infection’s spread in Europe and the U.S.

SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) — The spreading specter of the new coronavirus is shaking Latin America’s notoriously overcrowded, unruly prisons, threatening to turn them into an inferno.

Federal police are currently investigating several members of Bolsonaro’s family, including his sons Carlos and Flávio.

KENSCOFF, Haiti (AP) — For a limestone mantel from the Waldorf Astoria, the church that owns the Olde Good Things antique stores asks for $8,500.

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Another group of Cuban doctors has arrived in Mexico to help with the coronavirus outbreak, the second such delegation the country has welcomed.

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Cases of the new coronavirus are overwhelming hospitals, morgues and cemeteries across Brazil as Latin America’s largest nation veers closer to becoming one of the world’s pandemic hot spots.

The number of confirmed coronavirus cases doubled in one day after delayed test results were taken into account.