What the VP is saying these days.

Yes, this is not a typo.

A series of about three dozen government-written, free textbooks will be required reading for first through ninth grades in every school in Mexico starting on August 28. The books, issued by the López Obrador administration, contain glaring factual errors and criticize capitalism.

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — In his first visit to Latin America, Iran’s hardline president on Monday met with his Venezuelan counterpart and declared that both countries have “a common enemy,” alluding to the United States, before signing a series of cooperation agreements.

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.

Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó said he was expelled from Colombia hours after he crossed the border from Venezuela to try to meet with some participants at an international conference Tuesday to discuss his country’s political crisis.

With the country no longer isolated as it was under Bolsonaro, who engaged with only a few international pariahs, President Lula da Silva has endangered Brazil’s return to the international scene by supporting Russian actions in Ukraine.

The man responsible for running Venezuela’s oil industry —which pays for virtually everything in the troubled country, from subsidized food to ridiculously cheap gas— has quit amid investigations into alleged corruption among officials in various parts of the government.

the U.S. Department of State is allocating more than $140 million in additional humanitarian aid and $31 million in development assistance to “respond to the needs of vulnerable Venezuelans in Venezuela, Venezuelan refugees and migrants, and their generous host communities across the region,” according to a press release by Secretary Antony Blinken.

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.

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on Monday announced his intention to fully open the border crossings with Colombia starting January 1, a measure repeatedly postponed following the restoration of diplomatic and commercial ties between the South American neighbors.

The first of a weekly column by senior editor Hector Luis Alamo in which he gives an overview of the most interesting and important things he’s read, seen, or heard during the past week, providing his thoughts on them.

The announcement, made on Friday, is part of the Biden administration’s effort to directly address the disproportionate impacts of pollution that have existed for decades in many low-income communities and communities of color.

A judge on Wednesday ordered Iván-Santell Velázquez, a former student at the University of Puerto Rico, to serve 13 months in federal prison and two years of supervised release after he pleaded guilty to cyberstalking.

U.S. Customs and Border Patrol figures show that 110,061 Cubans crossed the border into Texas from October 2021 through September 2022. During that same time period, 109,106 Venezuelans crossed the border.

The Biden administration is also creating a pathway to allow “qualified” Venezuelans into the country. Venezuelans have been fleeing their home country in record numbers, and the number crossing the U.S.-Mexico border has surged.

Last month, Venezuelans surpassed Guatemalans and Hondurans to become the second-largest nationality stopped at the U.S. border after Mexicans. Venezuelans were stopped 25,349 times, up 43 percent from 17,652 in July and four times the 6,301 encounters in August 2021, authorities said Monday, signaling a remarkably sudden demographic shift.

A former Miami congressman who signed a $50 million consulting contract with Venezuela’s socialist government not only did no apparent work but also channeled a large chunk of the money to a yacht company on behalf of a fugitive billionaire, according to new allegations in a civil suit.

Colombia’s first leftist president was sworn into office Sunday, promising to fight inequality and bring peace to a country long haunted by bloody feuds between the government, drug traffickers, and rebel groups.

Three Americans were quietly jailed in Venezuela earlier this year for allegedly trying to enter the country illegally and now face long prison sentences in the politically turbulent nation. One of the men, Eyvin Hernández, is a 44-year-old lawyer and Salvadoran immigrant from California.

TAPACHULA, Mexico (AP) — Several thousand migrants set out walking in the rain early Monday in southern Mexico, tired of waiting to normalize their status in a region with little work and still far from their ultimate goal of reaching the United States.