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The Biden administration is increasingly concerned that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia is gathering enough momentum to change the trajectory of the war in Ukraine. Credit... Nanna Heitmann for The New York Times

Persons: Biden, Vladimir V, Putin, Nanna Heitmann Organizations: The New York Locations: Russia, Ukraine

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☆ Haiti Engulfed by Crisis as Gangs Press Prime Minister to Step Down
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-06 | by ( Simon Romero | Maria Abi-Habib | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Haiti’s security crisis is reaching a breaking point. An alliance of armed gangs is pressing the country’s prime minister to resign, placing the United States in the middle of a power struggle gripping the country. Aiming to ease the standoff, the Biden administration is increasing pressure on Prime Minister Ariel Henry to enable a transfer of power. The United States was not actively “calling on him or pushing for him to resign,” Matthew Miller, a spokesman for the State Department, said. The standoff emerged after Mr. Henry, who has been backed by the United States since becoming Haiti’s de facto leader after the assassination in 2021 of President Jovenel Moïse, was unable to return to Haiti on Tuesday because of doubts over safely landing at the airport in the capital, Port-au-Prince, which has been targeted in recent days by gang assaults.

Persons: Biden, Ariel Henry, ” Matthew Miller, Henry, Jovenel Moïse Organizations: State Department Locations: United States, Haiti, Port

☆ Mexico’s Presidential Race Is Shaping Up to Be a Blowout
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-01 | by ( Simon Romero | Emiliano Rodríguez Mega | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

With Mexico’s presidential election just three months away, one thing is clear: The candidate for the governing party appears to be running away with it. Claudia Sheinbaum, a physicist and protégée of the current president, holds a commanding lead of about 30 percentage points in the polls over the opposition’s Xóchitl Gálvez, a tech entrepreneur, as campaigning officially starts on Friday. Playing it safe at a time when the departing president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, remains broadly popular, Ms. Sheinbaum has kept so closely to his policies and persona that she not only vows to adopt his priorities, she also sometimes imitates his slow-paced way of talking in appearances across the country. But while Ms. Sheinbaum’s exceptionally disciplined campaign has cemented her front-runner status, the candidate who could be Mexico’s first female president remains something of an enigma to many Mexicans.

Persons: Claudia Sheinbaum, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Sheinbaum

☆ A Boring Capital for a Young Democracy. Just the Way Residents Like It.
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-28 | by ( Simon Romero | Alejandro Cegarra | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Mention Belmopan, Belize’s capital that sits deep in the country’s interior, and many Belizeans will belittle the city as a bastion of pencil-pushing bureaucrats that’s not just dull, but also devoid of nightlife. “I was warned, ‘Belmopan is for the newlyweds or the nearly deads,’” said Raquel Rodriguez, 45, owner of an art school, about the reactions when she moved to Belmopan from coastal, bustling Belize City. Not exactly known as an Eden for young urbanites, Belmopan figures among the smallest capital cities anywhere in the Americas. The capital of Central America’s only English-speaking nation can feel jarringly different from the frenetic capitals of neighboring countries. In terms of its origins and design, Belmopan has more in common with the capitals of other former British colonies, especially in Africa.

Persons: Belmopan, that’s, ’ ”, Raquel Rodriguez, Eden, urbanites Locations: Belmopan, Belize City, Americas, Central, Africa

☆ Mexico’s President Faces Inquiry for Disclosing Phone Number of Times Journalist
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-22 | by ( Simon Romero | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Mexico’s freedom of information institute, a government agency, said Thursday that it would start an investigation into the president’s disclosure on national television of the personal cellphone number of a journalist for The New York Times. At least 128 journalists have been killed in Mexico since 2006, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. During the news conference, Mr. López Obrador read aloud from an email from Natalie Kitroeff, The New York Times’s bureau chief for Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean. She had requested comment for an article revealing that U.S. law enforcement officials had for years been looking into claims that allies of Mr. López Obrador met with and took millions of dollars from drug cartels. In addition to railing against Ms. Kitroeff and identifying her by name, Mr. López Obrador publicly recited her phone number.

Persons: Andrés Manuel López Obrador, López Obrador, Natalie Kitroeff Organizations: The New York Times, Protect Journalists Locations: Mexico, The, York, Central America, Caribbean

☆ For First Time in Two Decades, U.S. Buys More From Mexico Than China
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-07 | by ( Ana Swanson | Simon Romero | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

In the depths of the pandemic, as global supply chains buckled and the cost of shipping a container to China soared nearly twentyfold, Marco Villarreal spied an opportunity. In 2021, Mr. Villarreal resigned as Caterpillar’s director general in Mexico and began nurturing ties with companies looking to shift manufacturing from China to Mexico. He found a client in Hisun, a Chinese producer of all-terrain vehicles, which hired Mr. Villarreal to establish a $152 million manufacturing site in Saltillo, an industrial hub in northern Mexico. Mr. Villarreal said foreign companies, particularly those seeking to sell within North America, saw Mexico as a viable alternative to China for several reasons, including the simmering trade tensions between the United States and China. New data released on Wednesday showed that Mexico outpaced China to become America’s top source of official imports for the first time in 20 years — a significant shift that highlights how increased tensions between Washington and Beijing are altering trade flows.

Persons: Marco Villarreal, Villarreal, ” Locations: China, Mexico, Saltillo, North America, United States, Washington, Beijing

Try going for a stroll in much of Guatemala City: It is a pedestrian’s nightmare. Rifle-grasping guards squint at each passerby, sizing up potential assailants. But tucked within the chaotic capital’s crazy-quilt sprawl, there is a dreamlike haven where none of that exists. Evoking the feel of a serene Mediterranean town, Cayalá features milky white buildings with red-tile roofs, a colossal civic hall with Tuscan columns, cafes and high-priced restaurants, colonnade-lined plazas and walkable, stone-paved boulevards. All of this is open to the public — except for the gated sections where about 2,000 families live.

Locations: Guatemala City, Cayalá, States

☆ Tempers Flare as Guatemala’s Presidential Inauguration Is Delayed
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-14 | by ( Simon Romero | Jody García | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Opponents of the anticorruption crusader Bernardo Arévalo delayed his inauguration as president of Guatemala on Sunday, ratcheting political tensions higher in Central America’s most populous country. Confusion around the transition of power emerged shortly after Guatemala’s highest court on Sunday allowed conservative members of Congress opposed to Mr. Arévalo to maintain their leadership of the chamber. After that ruling, arguments among lawmakers flared in the chamber around midday when Congress was expected to officially name Mr. Arévalo as president. Some congressional members went behind closed doors; as they remained deliberating, other lawmakers contended they were trying to derail the transfer of power, fueling bewilderment and frustration around the country. “These are the latest strategies that corrupt elites are using to prevent a democratically elected government from coming to power,” said José Ochoa, 64, a small-business owner who was among the hundreds who streamed into the streets of Guatemala City’s old center to show support for Mr. Arévalo on Sunday.

Persons: Bernardo Arévalo, Arévalo, ”, José Ochoa Locations: Guatemala, Central America’s

☆ New Leader Set to Take Over in Guatemala, Raising Hopes for a Fragile Democracy
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-14 | by ( Simon Romero | Jody García | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Since Bernardo Arévalo burst onto Guatemala’s political scene last year as an anticorruption crusader, he has faced an assassination plot, his party’s suspension and a barrage of legal attacks aimed at preventing him from taking office as president. Mr. Arévalo’s inauguration on Sunday — six months after his presidential victory delivered a stunning rebuke to Guatemala’s conservative political establishment — will mark a sea change in Central America’s most populous country. His landslide election reflected broad support for his proposals to curb graft and revive a teetering democracy. “Arévalo has the most thankless job in Guatemala today because he arrives with exceptionally high expectations,” said Edgar Ortíz Romero, a constitutional law expert. “He’s been given a budget for a Toyota when people want a Ferrari.”

Persons: Bernardo Arévalo, Arévalo’s, Arévalo, “ Arévalo, ”, Edgar Ortíz Romero, “ He’s Organizations: Toyota Locations: Central America’s, Guatemala

First the trucks arrived, carrying armed men toward the mist-shrouded mountaintop. Then the flames appeared, sweeping across a forest of towering pines and oaks. After the fire laid waste to the forest last year, the trucks returned. This time, they carried the avocado plants taking root in the orchards scattered across the once tree-covered summit where townspeople used to forage for mushrooms. “We never witnessed a blaze on this scale before,” said Maricela Baca Yépez, 46, a municipal official and lifelong resident of Patuán, a town nestled in the volcanic plateaus where Mexico’s Purépecha people have lived for centuries.

Persons: ”, Maricela Baca Yépez Locations: Patuán

Jesús Ociel Baena made history a year ago when they were sworn in as the first openly nonbinary person to assume a judicial post in Mexico. Baena, who used they/them pronouns, and their partner were found dead inside their home, stirring calls from Mexico’s L.G.B.T.Q. community to determine if the magistrate had been targeted for promoting the rights of nonbinary people. Baena, 38, was a magistrate on the electoral court, have said that their 37-year-old partner, Dorian Herrera, appeared to have killed them with a razor blade before dying by suicide. leaders in Mexico are questioning whether such a swift assessment fits what they say is a pattern by the authorities of effectively dismissing grisly killings involving L.G.B.T.Q.

Persons: Jesús, Baena, Mexico’s, Dorian Herrera Locations: Mexico, Aguascalientes

On Tuesday morning, few meteorologists were talking about Tropical Storm Otis. At that time, forecast computer models didn’t show much to be concerned about. By Sunday evening, the computer forecast models were still not showing much. This is why meteorologists often preach that a computer model isn’t a forecast — forecasters create forecasts, they like to say. On Monday evening, with Otis still a tropical storm, satellite images revealed a little feature that could mean that the storm was about to intensify very quickly.

Persons: Tropical Storm Otis, Otis, Zach Levitt, Tomer, we’re, Eric Blake, Hurricane Otis Organizations: Tropical Storm, National, U.S, National Hurricane Center, Otis, Hurricane Locations: Mexico, Tomer Burg, Florida, @burgwx, Acapulco

Okeef Saunders loves his job teaching history to high school students in Jamaica’s capital. But he is getting ready to leave for the United States, where a teaching job with a much bigger paycheck in North Carolina awaits him. “I have four kids to support, a mortgage, bills for food, water, electricity,” said Mr. Saunders, 49, who teaches at a Kingston high school. He said he plans to start out earning about $50,000 a year in United States, doubling his current salary after working as a teacher in Jamaica for the last 28 years. In the United States alone, nearly half of all public schools have been operating without a full teaching staff, according to the U.S. Department of Education, as enrollment in teacher preparation programs plunges.

Persons: Okeef Saunders, “, ”, Saunders Organizations: Kingston, U.S . Department of Education Locations: Jamaica’s, United States, North Carolina, Jamaica, Canada, Britain

☆ Mummies From Outer Space? Mexico’s Congress Gets a Firsthand Look
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-13 | by ( Simon Romero | More About Simon Romero | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Mexico’s Congress is usually meant to be a venue for solemn presentations on budgets and other serious legislation. researcher who brought with him some unusual objects: two mummified specimens that he claimed were the bodies of extraterrestrial beings. The presentation of the mummies on Tuesday by Jaime Maussan, a journalist who has speculated widely on aliens, caused jaws to drop and memes to multiply around the country. The two specimens, which Mr. Maussan said were found in Peru in 2017, were tiny in stature and chalky in color; each had three-fingered hands and what appeared to be shrunken or desiccated heads. “These are nonhuman beings who are not part of our terrestrial evolution,” Mr. Maussan declared under oath, with a sign-language interpreter at his side.

Persons: U.F.O, Jaime Maussan, Maussan, Mr Organizations: National Autonomous University of Mexico Locations: Peru

Every day, Vélina Élysée Charlier drives past barricaded neighborhoods and frequently sees dead bodies lying on the street, she said, a result of score-settling between gangs and vigilantes in Haiti’s capital. After dusk, she never leaves home for fear of being killed or kidnapped. When her 8-year-old daughter got appendicitis one evening, Ms. Charlier said, the family waited until morning to get her medical care since driving to a hospital was out of the question. “Port-au-Prince looks like something out of hell these days,” said Ms. Charlier, 42, a prominent anticorruption activist in the city and mother of four who lives in a hillside area of the capital. After that desperate appeal, a force led by Kenya finally seems close to materializing in what would be the first time an African country leads such a mission in one of the Americas’ most unstable places.

Persons: Charlier, ” Locations: “, Kenya

A new accounting shows that at least 523 institutions were part of the sprawling network of boarding schools for Native American children. ‘War Against the Children’ The Native American boarding school system — a decades-long effort to assimilate Indigenous people before they ever reached adulthood — robbed children of their culture, family bonds and sometimes their lives. “The government was not done with war, so the next phase involved war against the children,” said Mr. Sherman, 83, a former aerospace engineer. Now 76, his voice grows shaky when he recounts the punishments children received — and how children were turned into punishers. Library of Congress, Chronicling AmericaA precise accounting of how many children died at Native American boarding schools remains elusive.

Ecuador and Guatemala held elections on Sunday that shed light on crucial trends throughout Latin America, including anticorruption drives, the growing importance of young voters and calls to emulate El Salvador’s crackdown on crime. In Ecuador, where the assassination this month of the presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio cast a pall over campaigning, an establishment leftist, Luisa González, will head into a runoff against Daniel Noboa, the scion of a well-heeled family known for its banana empire. And in Guatemala, the progressive anti-graft crusader Bernardo Arévalo won in a landslide over a former first lady, Sandra Torres, dealing a blow to the country’s conservative political establishment. As concerns simmer over the erosion of the rule of law and the expanding sway of drug gangs in different parts of Latin America, the voting was watched closely for signs of what the outcomes could mean.

Persons: El, Fernando Villavicencio, Luisa González, Daniel Noboa, Bernardo Arévalo, Sandra Torres Locations: Ecuador, Guatemala, America

An anticorruption crusader won a runoff election for Guatemala’s presidency on Sunday, handing a stunning rebuke to the conservative political establishment in Central America’s most populous nation. Bernardo Arévalo, a polyglot sociologist from an upstart party made up largely of urban professionals, took 58 percent of the vote with 98 percent of votes counted on Sunday, the electoral authority said. His opponent, Sandra Torres, a former first lady, got 37 percent. Alejandro Giammattei, the current president, who is prohibited by law from seeking re-election, congratulated Mr. Arévalo and extended an invitation to organize an “orderly” transition of power. Mr. Arévalo’s win marks a watershed moment in Guatemala, both a leading source of migration to the United States and one of Washington’s longtime allies in the region.

Persons: Bernardo Arévalo, Sandra Torres, Alejandro Giammattei, Mr, Arévalo, Arévalo’s Organizations: Sunday Locations: Central America’s, Guatemala, United States

While Guatemala’s president, the broadly unpopular leader Alejandro Giammattei, is prohibited by law from seeking re-election, concerns over a slide toward authoritarianism have grown more acute as he has expanded his sway over the country’s institutions. Who is Bernardo Arévalo? Bernardo Arévalo, 64, an intellectual, is the son of a Juan José Arévalo, a former president who is still exalted for creating Guatemala’s social security system and protecting free speech. After the former leader was forced into exile in the 1950s, Bernardo Arévalo was born in Uruguay and grew up in Venezuela, Chile and Mexico before returning to Guatemala as a teenager. Mr. Arévalo is proposing to hire thousands of new police officers and upgrade security at prisons.

Persons: Alejandro Giammattei, Bernardo Arévalo, Juan José Arévalo, Arévalo, Nayib Bukele Locations: Uruguay, Venezuela, Chile, Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador

Bernardo Arévalo had been enjoying a quiet and predictable life for nearly a decade with his family in Geneva, working on pro-democracy issues for a nonprofit. That placid existence ended after he returned to his homeland, Guatemala, and got drawn into politics. Today, whenever Mr. Arévalo appears in public, he attracts throngs to hear him assail the government’s attacks on Guatemala’s democracy. Flanked by a well-armed security detail after receiving death threats following the assassination last week of a presidential candidate in Ecuador — which sent tremors across Latin America — Mr. Arévalo wears a bullet-resistant vest and travels in an armored S.U.V. Now, in what is building into a watershed moment for Central America’s most populous country, Mr. Arévalo, a Hebrew- and French-speaking polyglot with a doctorate in sociology, is on the cusp of winning the presidency in a runoff on Sunday — an implausible scenario just months ago.

Persons: Bernardo Arévalo, Arévalo, throngs Organizations: America’s Locations: Geneva, Guatemala, Ecuador, America

When Hawaii’s last sugar cane plantation shut down in Maui in 2016, it marked the end of an era when sugar reigned supreme in the archipelago’s economy. But the last harvest at the 36,000-acre plantation underscored another pivotal shift: the relentless spread of extremely flammable, nonnative grasses on idled lands where cash crops once flourished. Varieties like guinea grass, molasses grass and buffel grass — which originated in Africa and were introduced to Hawaii as livestock forage — now occupy nearly a quarter of Hawaii’s landmass. Fast growing when it rains and drought resistant when lands are parched, such grasses are fueling wildfires across Hawaii, including the blaze that claimed at least 93 lives in Maui last week. “These grasses are highly aggressive, grow very fast and are highly flammable,” said Melissa Chimera, whose grandmother lived on the Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Company’s plantation in Maui after emigrating from the Philippines.

Persons: ”, Melissa Chimera, “ Organizations: Fire Exchange Locations: Maui, Africa, Hawaii, Philippines, Pacific

The losses in Lahaina from the fire now include the historic Baldwin Home, which houses the restoration foundation’s main office and was considered the oldest house still standing on the island of Maui. It was built between 1834-35 by the Rev. Ephraim Spaulding, a missionary from Massachusetts who prized its proximity to the waters where whaling ships once anchored. The home contained the wooden rocking chairs that the family of the Rev. Unlike others in Lahaina whose families in the area stretch back generations, Ms. Morrison, 75, from Berkeley, Calif., happened upon the town while sailing around the Hawaiian islands in 1975.

Persons: Baldwin, Ephraim Spaulding, Dwight Baldwin, Morrison, Mark Twain, ”, “, — Organizations: East Coast Locations: Lahaina, Maui, Massachusetts, East, Berkeley, Calif, ”

☆ U.S. Nurse and Her Child Released by Kidnappers in Haiti
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-09 | by ( Simon Romero | More About Simon Romero | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

An American nurse and her child in Haiti have been freed by their abductors after their kidnapping in late July drew international attention to a wave of anarchic violence gripping the capital, Port-au-Prince. El Roi Haiti, a faith-based humanitarian organization, said in a brief statement on Wednesday that Alix Dorsainvil, the group’s community nurse and the wife of the group’s director, was released along with her child after they were held in Port-au-Prince. They had been abducted on July 31 from El Roi’s campus near the capital, and the U.S. State Department had said that American officials were working with their Haitian counterparts to get them released. “There is still much to process and to heal from in this situation,” El Roi said in its statement. “We are so thankful for everyone who joined us in prayer and supported us during this crisis.”

Persons: ., Alix Dorsainvil, ” El Roi, ” Organizations: U.S . State Department, Haitian Locations: American, Haiti, Port, . El Roi Haiti, El Roi’s

PinnedThe massacre of 11 worshipers at a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018 is considered the deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S. history. “Finally, justice has been served,” said Leigh Stein, whose father, Dan Stein, was killed in the attack. Image Relatives of the victims of the Pittsburgh synagogue mass shooting spoke on Wednesday after jurors recommended that the gunman be sentenced to death. The defense called no witnesses in that part of the trial, as there was never any dispute that Mr. Bowers had carried out the attack. The police rushed to the synagogue and, after exchanging gunfire with Mr. Bowers, eventually cornered him in a classroom.

Persons: Robert Bowers, “, ”, Leigh Stein, Dan Stein, Biden, ” Merrick, Garland, Robert Colville, Justin Merriman, Howard Fienberg, Joyce Fienberg, we’ve, ” Weeks, Bowers, Dor Hadash —, Cecil, David Rosenthal, Fienberg, Irving Younger, Sylvan Simon, Simon’s, Bernice, Rose Mallinger, Jerry Rabinowitz, Dor Hadash, Richard Gottfried, Stein, Melvin Wax, Judy Clarke, Satan, Ms, Clarke, ” Eric Olshan, “ It’s, that’s, Doris Dyen, Jon Moss Organizations: “, Justice Department, The New York Times, Jewish Community Center of Greater, ., New, Prosecutors, Western, Western District of Locations: Pittsburgh, U.S, Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh, Western District, Western District of Pennsylvania

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