News

Puerto Rico announced Sunday that it plans to privatize electricity generation, a first for a U.S. territory facing chronic power outages as it struggles to rebuild a crumbling electric grid.

A roundup of the week’s top Latino news from around the world, written by Latino Rebels senior editor Hector Luis Alamo.

The mayor of Mexico City announced Thursday that 6,060 National Guard officers will be posted in the city’s subway system after a series of accidents that officials suggested could be due to sabotage.

Protests against Peruvian President Dina Boluarte’s government that have left 48 people dead since they began a month ago spread through the south of the Andean country on Wednesday with new clashes reported in the tourist city of Cusco.

The Biden administration is under growing pressure from leftists in Latin America as well as U.S. lawmakers to expel Jair Bolsonaro from a post-presidential retreat in Florida following his supporters’ brazen attack on Brazil’s capital over the weekend.

As thousands of children were taken from their parents at the southern border during a Trump administration crackdown on illegal crossings, a federal public defender in San Diego set out to find new strategies to go after the longstanding deportation law fueling the family separations.

Authorities in Puerto Rico arrested Randy Ortiz Acevedo of the popular reggaetón duo Jowell & Randy on domestic violence charges after a judge on Monday ruled there was sufficient evidence against the singer.

Brazilian authorities vowed Monday to protect democracy and punish thousands of supporters of ex-President Jair Bolsonaro who stormed and trashed the nation’s highest seats of power in chaos with striking similarities to the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

President Joe Biden walked a muddy stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border and inspected a busy port of entry Sunday on his first trip to the region after two years in office, a visit shadowed by the fraught politics of immigration as Republicans blame him for record numbers of migrants crossing into the country.

Fed up with the slow government response, Puerto Ricans in beach towns along the western coast have set up encampments to demand action be taken to stop illegal construction from further destroying the environment.

For decades, the DEA has supported special units abroad, whose agents are local police officers vetted and trained by the U.S. Now, former agents and members of those units —some of them currently facing criminal accusations— reveal that the drug cartels bribed them while they had access to sensitive information from the U.S. government.

A rundown of the Latino-centric news from the first week of the new year.

President Joe Biden said Thursday the U.S. would immediately begin turning away Cubans, Haitians, and Nicaraguans who cross the border from Mexico illegally. Instead, the U.S. will accept 30,000 people per month from those countries and Venezuela for two years as long as they come legally, have eligible sponsors, and pass background checks.

President Joe Biden intends to visit the U.S.-Mexico border —his first trip there since taking office— in connection with his meeting next week in Mexico City with the leaders of Mexico and Canada.

As a colony of the United States, Puerto Rico has inherited a lot of cultural artifacts from the American nation, such as fast food, car-centric city design, and Santa Claus. But the latest import is far darker than the others: the threat of school shootings.

Brazil said a final farewell to Pelé on Tuesday, burying the legend who unified the bitterly divided country. Newly inaugurated President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva paid his respects at Vila Belmiro, the stadium where Pelé played for most of his career.

Against the backdrop of increasingly violent protests by supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro, who has fled to Florida in hopes of escaping prosecution in Brazil, Sunday saw the formerly jailed Lula da Silva of the Workers’ Party resume the presidency.

Mexico’s Supreme Court elected the first female chief justice in its history Monday. Justice Norma Lucía Piña was sworn in for her four-year term at the head of the 11-member court, pledging to maintain the independence of the country’s highest court.

Senior editor Hector Luis Alamo gives a rundown of some of the facts, bits of news, real histories, and actual lies he came across during the past week.

A Peruvian judge on Thursday ordered ousted President Pedro Castillo to remain in custody for 18 months as nationwide protests set off by the political crisis showed no signs of abating and the death toll rose to at least 14.

On Thursday the House passed the Puerto Rico Status Act, which received a floor vote after its approval by a House committee on Wednesday. Now, the race is on to get approval from the Senate before a new Republican-controlled House is sworn in on January 3.