A striking line of red paint approximately eight inches wide and spanning a kilometer in length appeared on Friday in parts of downtown San José. Part of a project called Kilometer Downtown, its intent is to guide tourists to hotels and safe spots where they can ask for information.

Amid multiple corruption and misconduct probes muddling his first three months in office, President Rodrigo Chaves has lashed out at the press. In July, authorities shuttered a business financing the operations of leading newspaper La Nación.

After a tense run-off election marked by personal invective and mass voter abstention, the controversial conservative economist Rodrigo Chaves will take office as the next president of Costa Rica in May despite past sexual harassment and an open investigation for illicit campaign finance.

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.

Secretary Blinken’s first trip to the isthmus will test whether Costa Rica can and wants to emerge as a regional power broker.

Since Wednesday, about 2,200 people have been demonstrating in the streets and at least 50 road blockades have been set.

Latino Rebels Radio: July 22, 2020

SAN JOSÉ, Costa Rica (AP) — Costa Rica became the latest country to legalize same-sex marriage early Tuesday when a ruling from its supreme court went into effect ending the country’s ban.

A 2018 court ruling to legalize gay marriage is set to take effect on May 26. Some lawmakers are criticizing moves to delay its implementation.

UPALA, Costa Rica (AP) — In Costa Rica’s rural north, several hundred Nicaraguan refugees are carving out an existence with machetes and a firm belief that they could be jailed or killed if they return too soon to their country.

The bilateral negotiations follow the murder of Sergio Rojas, a Bribrí land rights leader who was shot dead on March 18.

“Es un proceso interno en Costa Rica, y un proceso en América Latina de la visibilización de los pueblos afrodescendientes, que se consolida con esta victoria electoral”, le dijo a Latino USA.

Carlos Alvarado Quesada won handily in Sunday’s run-off, with more than 60 percent of the vote.

While the English-language U.S. press has focused on Central American migrants journeying north, little is being written about the migrant crisis happening in Costa Rica. Contrary to reports that Nicaragua is not experiencing much migration to the United States when compared to countries such as El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, one fact is being largely […]

Two stories out of Latin America got our attention this week. The first one comes from Costa Rica via TicoTimes: Costa Rica’s Legislative Assembly on Monday passed a measure – by accident – that could legalize same-sex civil unions as part of a larger bill, lawmakers noted on Tuesday. Conservative lawmakers voted for the bill’s […]

In response to questions as to whether the U.S. State Department authorized and approved a Gangnam-inspired “USA Visa Style” parody video produced and uploaded to YouTube by the U.S. Embassy in Costa Rica, a State Department official provided us with the following statement: Our embassies and consulates around the world are always looking for new […]

File this one under the following category: Some Ideas Are Best Left As Ideas. Who thought that doing a “USA Visa Style” video for the United States Embassy in Costa Rica was a great idea? Here’s the scoop: it’s not. Not now, not yesterday, not tomorrow. You can see the original video here, at the […]

Left-of-center opposition legislator Bernardo Arévalo shattered all forecasts, seizing second place in Guatemala’s presidential elections on Sunday and advancing to an August runoff. Arévalo will face political boss Sandra Torres.

‘Chile ’76’ and ‘The Cow Who Sang a Song Into the Future’ not only announce the arrival of two distinctive, idiosyncratic voices, but directors Manuela Martelli and Francisca Alegría are harbingers of what is yet to come from Latin American cinema.

Honduras, Nicaragua, and El Salvador’s nods to Russia and China are often read as a jealousy game in the U.S. bilateral relationship. Regional leaders claim sovereignty and multipolarity as their mantra. Experts say that non-ideological short-term calculus and a search for impunity are instead guiding their actions.

Beatriz, a woman diagnosed with lupus, was denied an abortion of an anencephalic fetus in 2013 in El Salvador despite 15 doctors’ recommendations that she do so to protect her health. Attorneys for Beatriz’s family —she died in 2017— are challenging El Salvador’s total ban.