After a 13-year total ban, on Wednesday, International Women’s day, Honduras’ first woman president, Xiomara Castro, legalized the use and distribution of the emergency contraceptive pill, also known as the morning-after pill —or PAE, in Honduras— for everyone in the country.

The same day that Nayib Bukele staged a military siege of the gang bastion Soyapango, Xiomara Castro deployed police and military in 162 of Honduras’ most marginalized urban communities after decreeing a state of exception. The suspension of constitutional guarantees goes even further than in the Salvadoran model.

Honduras is the only country in Latin America where access to emergency contraception is banned and one of the few countries in the region where abortion is prohibited under any circumstances, including in cases of rape or incest.

The government on Monday repealed a law that authorized self-governing economic zones known as “ZEDEs.” This decision forced foreign investors in Honduras to pause plans to develop in these zones. President Xiomara Castro said that Monday’s repeal was “historic” and the country was “recovering its sovereignty.”

Former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández was expected to make a virtual appearance in federal court in New York on Friday to face drug trafficking and weapons charges after he was arrested in Honduras and extradited overnight to the United States.

U.S. prosecutors in the Southern District of New York have accused former President Juan Orlando Hernández in recent years of funding his political rise with profits from drug traffickers in exchange for protecting their shipments.

An anti-corruption team from Honduras’ Attorney General’s Office visited presidential offices a week after President Juan Orlando Hernández stepped down and found paper shredders and none of the financial documents they were looking for, the chief of the investigators said Thursday.

Honduras’ Supreme Court of Justice on Thursday denied the appeal of former President Juan Orlando Hernández to be held under house arrest during his extradition process.

Police arrested former Honduras President Juan Orlando Hernández at his home Tuesday, a step toward fulfilling a request by the United States government for his extradition on drug trafficking and weapons charges.

Honduras’ first woman president, Xiomara Castro, was sworn in on Thursday at the national soccer stadium in Tegucigalpa. During her inaugural address, Castro expressed disdain for the outgoing administration’s “economic catastrophe.”

Many see Vice President Harris’ trip to Honduras as a sign that Washington intends to work closely with Honduras and other Central American countries to stem the flow of migration northward. But many Honduran immigrants living in the United States are hoping Washington does something more for their homeland.

As of Monday afternoon, Honduras still had two parallel Congressional leaderships, both under suspicion of illegality, a sign that does not bode well for the stability for the first days of Castro’s presidency. 

The prospects of Honduras President-elect Xiomara Castro governing with the support of a solid congressional majority took a hit Friday when the selection of leaders for newly-elected lawmakers devolved into shouting and shoving among her own allies.

The defeat of the National Party at the ballot box on November 28 set off a political earthquake—not only in the Presidential Palace in Tegucigalpa, but also in the far-flung provinces where drug traffickers reign.

Latino Rebels Radio: December 2, 2021

Record participation and a 20-point lead for Xiomara Castro defeated fears of a stolen election based on violence during the campaign and past fraud. If confirmed, the results will swing Honduras to the left after 12 years of National Party rule marred by narco-politics and intersecting humanitarian and economic crises.

Just weeks before Honduras holds presidential elections, an independent candidate who was one of the first to publicly accuse President Juan Orlando Hernández’s brother of ties to drug trafficking was arrested Thursday on money laundering charges.

Honduras, in Brief: A last-minute alliance has shifted the pre-election scene to open the possibility of the first-ever victory of a left-wing party. In the middle of an increasingly violent campaign season, President Juan Orlando Hernández’s latest move was to reignite a decades-long territorial dispute with El Salvador. 

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration has struck an agreement with a trio of Central American nations to temporarily surge security forces to their borders in an effort to reduce the tide of immigration to the U.S. border.

NEW YORK (AP) — A Honduran accountant testified Tuesday that he fled Honduras because he felt his life was in danger after witnessing two meetings in which an alleged drug trafficker paid bribes to now-President Juan Orlando Hernández in 2013.

NEW YORK (AP) — A convicted Honduran drug trafficker and former leader of a cartel testified in United States federal court Thursday that he paid now-President Juan Orlando Hernández $250,000 for protection from arrest in 2012.