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☆ Images of a Brazilian City Underwater
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-08 | by ( Ana Ionova | Tanira Lebedeff | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Anderson da Silva Pantaleão was at the snack bar he owns last Friday when clay-colored water began filling the streets in the southern Brazilian city of Porto Alegre. On Monday, water began flooding the second floor, and they thought the worst. Then, a military boat arrived and rescued Mr. Pantaleão. A day later, despite heavy rains, Mr. Pantaleão was trying to go back on a rescue boat to search for friends who were still missing or stranded. “The water is running out, the food is running out.”

Persons: Anderson da Silva Pantaleão, ”, “ You’re, Pantaleão Locations: Porto Alegre

☆ Torrential Rains Leave at Least 13 Dead and More Missing in Brazil
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-02 | by ( Ana Ionova | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

At least 13 people have been killed and 21 are missing after heavy rains drenched southern Brazil, prompting a state government to send rescue helicopters in search of stranded residents, the authorities said on Thursday. The torrential rains that poured over the state of Rio Grande do Sul in recent days were well above normal for this time of year, according to experts. The rains swelled rivers across the state’s low-lying central valley region, flooding towns, causing a bridge to collapse, blocking roads and setting off mudslides. One town, Canudos do Vale, was left isolated with no electricity or communication. In the town of Candelária, residents awaited rescue helicopters on the roofs of their flooded homes.

Organizations: National Institute of Meteorology, The New York Times Locations: Brazil, Rio Grande do Sul, Canudos, Candelária

☆ Rains Are Scarce in the Amazon. Instead, Megafires Are Raging.
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-09 | by ( Ana Ionova | Manuela Andreoni | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

By this time of the year, rain should be drenching large swaths of the Amazon rainforest. Instead, a punishing drought has kept the rains at bay, creating dry conditions for fires that have engulfed hundreds of square miles of the rainforest that do not usually burn. The fires have turned the end of the dry season in the northern part of the giant rainforest into a crisis. Firefighters have struggled to contain enormous blazes that have sent choking smoke into cities across South America. A record number of fires so far this year in the Amazon has also raised questions about what may be in store for the world’s biggest tropical rainforest when the dry season starts in June in the far larger southern part of the jungle.

Organizations: Firefighters Locations: South America

A man was arrested in Brazil on Thursday in connection with the killing of Brent Sikkema, a New York art dealer who was found with 18 stab wounds in his Rio de Janeiro apartment this week. The man, Alejandro Triana Trevez, knew Mr. Sikkema and was believed to have stolen cash from the scene before fleeing, said Detective Alexandre Herdy, head of the city’s police homicide unit. The police believe that Mr. Sikkema had brought over $40,000 to spend on furnishing a new apartment in Rio. “He staked out on the street,” Detective Herdy said. “He comes from São Paulo in the morning, goes straight to the place where the crime took place, to the victim’s street.

Persons: Brent Sikkema, Alejandro Triana Trevez, Sikkema, Alexandre Herdy, Herdy, “, São, Mr, Trevez Organizations: São Paulo Locations: Brazil, New York, Rio de Janeiro, Rio, Cuban, Uberaba

A toxic algae bloom, likely linked to the drought and extreme heat, has also proliferated in the lake, creating a red stain in the water, although scientists are unsure if it could harm humans or animals. “We’re using nets to try to steer the dolphins out of this area,” Dr. Fleischmann said. Wildfires have consumed more than 18,000 square miles of the Amazon since the start of the year, an area twice the size of Vermont. Checking air quality data each morning has become an anxious habit in the city, as children and older people have ended up in hospitals struggling to breathe, according to doctors in Manaus. “It’s really hard to fill your lungs with air,” she said.

Persons: Dr, Fleischmann, Camila Justa, “ Locations: Vermont, Manaus

But for a variety of reasons, those facing serious crimes are most often required to serve their sentences in the United States. Image Danelo Cavalcante Credit... Chester County District Attorney's Office, via Associated PressDid U.S. law enforcement know that a fugitive from Brazil was in the United States? Mr. Cavalcante was wanted in Brazil in connection with the slaying of a man in his small town of Figueiropolis in 2017. Even if Brazil had issued an Interpol notice calling for his arrest, the United States would have had no reason to believe he was living in the United States. People who are tried and convicted of a crime in the United States must serve their time here, with rare exceptions.

Persons: Danelo, Danelo Souza Cavalcante, Cavalcante, ”, Aaron Reichlin, Alejandro Mayorkas, Desiree Rios, Biden, Mayorkas, Saul Martinez, noncitizens, ” Mr, Reichlin, Melnick, Eleni Cavalcante, “, William Stock, Stock Organizations: Department of Homeland Security, Prison, Immigrants, Attorney's, Associated Press, . Immigration, Customs, ICE, American Immigration Council, Homeland Security, The New York Times, ., Mr, Congress, United, Pennsylvania State Police, American Immigration Lawyers Association Locations: Pocopson Township, Pa, Brazil, United States, Pennsylvania, Chester, U.S, Chester County, Washington, Figueiropolis, Pompano Beach, Fla, deportable, Philadelphia

Danelo Cavalcante, the Pennsylvania prison escapee, has now been roaming wooded areas and small suburban towns for nearly two weeks, presumably with no shelter and little to eat or drink, as he flees the hundreds of police officers desperately searching for him. Back home in rural Brazil, his mother, Iracema Cavalcante, sees a son whose life has trained him to live alone and overcome hardships, preparing him for his long flight from the authorities after being convicted of murdering his ex-girlfriend. But Ms. Cavalcante, while saying her son stabbed his ex-girlfriend in Pennsylvania in 2021 and murdered a man in Brazil in 2017, insists her son, even if armed, “did not pose a threat to anyone.” He is just fighting to survive, she said, as he has for much of his life. “His training was his suffering,” said Ms. Cavalcante, in her first interview since her son escaped from prison last month. “It was going to sleep hungry, it was waking up as I wondered what to feed them.”

Persons: Danelo Cavalcante, Iracema Cavalcante, Cavalcante, “, ” Locations: Pennsylvania, Brazil

☆ Escapee Had Been a Fugitive Before Pennsylvania Jailbreak
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-11 | by ( Ana Ionova | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

It was just after midnight on a Saturday. A light rain was starting to fall in the mostly empty town square by the church. Evaldo Alves Feitosa was flipping his last burger of the night when he heard the gunshots outside his snack stand. “I thought it was a firecracker from a party at the club over there,” Mr. Feitosa said. When he looked out, he saw Danelo Cavalcante jumping into a silver car and speeding away.

Persons: Evaldo Alves Feitosa, ” Mr, Feitosa, Danelo, Valter Júnior Moreira dos Reis, Danilo, ”

The number of officers searching for Danelo Cavalcante, who escaped from the Chester County Prison on Aug. 31, grew to nearly 400, with multiple helicopters circling and officials abruptly closing roads in an area near Longwood Gardens. Mr. Cavalcante, who was convicted of stabbing his ex-girlfriend to death, had been photographed by a trail camera at the gardens Wednesday night and then spotted there again around noon on Thursday. Also on Friday, local officials said the jail had fired a corrections officer who was on duty when Mr. Cavalcante clambered up to a roof to escape. An 18-year veteran of the jail, the officer, who was not named, had been stationed in a watchtower but failed to see Mr. Cavalcante escape the exercise yard. He was put on administrative leave earlier this week and fired on Thursday, said Michelle Bjork, a spokeswoman for the Chester County Commissioners’ Office.

Persons: Danelo Cavalcante, Cavalcante, Michelle Bjork Organizations: ’ Locations: Philadelphia, Chester, Longwood, Chester County

☆ Xuxa era a Barbie do Brasil. Será que foi um erro?
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-15 | by ( Ana Ionova | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Durante seu reinado, que coincidiu com a expansão econômica do Brasil, as taxas de cirurgia plástica dispararam para as mais altas do mundo, com muitas pessoas se submetendo a ela ainda na adolescência. Mas o Brasil e seus guardiões da cultura agora adotam novas definições de beleza, que celebram cabelos cacheados e crespos, corpos curvilíneos e tons de pele negros.

☆ She Was Brazil’s Barbie. Now She’s Saying Sorry.
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-15 | by ( Ana Ionova | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

In the 1980s and 1990s, Maria da Graça Xuxa Meneghel, known universally as Xuxa (pronounced SHOO-shah), was Brazil’s biggest television star. Generations of children spent mornings watching her play, sing and dance for hours on her wildly popular variety show. “I was a doll, a babysitter, a friend to these children,” Xuxa, 60, said in a wide-ranging interview. “A Barbie of that time.”“She came with a pink car,” she added. “I came with a pink spaceship.”Like the famous doll, Xuxa, too, is thin, blond, blue-eyed and white.

Persons: Maria da Graça, ” Xuxa, “, Barbie, ”

☆ Brazil’s Police Raid Bolsonaro Home in Fake Vaccine Cards Case
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-03 | by ( Flávia Milhorance | Ana Ionova | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

RIO DE JANEIRO — The Brazilian police raided the home of former President Jair Bolsonaro on Wednesday and seized his cellphone as part of a sweeping investigation into forged Covid-19 vaccination records that may have allowed him and his top aides to gain entry into the United States. The authorities searched more than a dozen homes in Rio de Janeiro and Brasília, arresting six people, including one of Mr. Bolsonaro’s closest aides and two of his security guards, who are suspected of tampering with a government vaccination database and issuing falsified records. The forged vaccine cards may have allowed Mr. Bolsonaro and his aides to sidestep U.S. travel restrictions put in place at the height of the coronavirus pandemic, investigators said. False vaccine certificates may have been issued for Mr. Bolsonaro, his 12-year-old daughter, Laura, and other top officials in his administration, according to the Brazilian authorities. The police said the vaccination records were forged between November 2021 and December 2022.

How Brazil’s Leader Built the Myth of Rigged Elections By Jack Nicas, Flávia Milhorance and Ana Ionova Produced by Gray Beltran Leer en españolFor years, President Jair Bolsonaro has attacked Brazil’s election systems. Yet in speeches, interviews and hundreds of posts on social media, the president has consistently and methodically repeated those baseless claims and many others about Brazil’s voting system. At the time, he suggested that the election’s results could not be trusted because of the voting machines. He showed a video from a programmer who claimed to demonstrate how voting machines were hacked in 2018. (Experts and fact-checkers said the video was riddled with errors, including a fundamental misunderstanding of how the voting system works.)

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