The Perez Zeledon Court dropped its charges and absolved Ann Maxine Patton, who was suspected of murdering her husband, yesterday afternoon. After deciding it had insufficient evidence to convict her, the court set Patton free, and dismissed the charges against her. Patton, since her husband’s death, has always maintained her version of the events, stating her husband, John Felix Bender, had co...

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Prosecutors and the District Attorney are asking for a 25-year prison sentence for U.S. citizen, Ann Maxine Patton, accused of killing husband, John Felix Bender in 2010 in the couple’s home located in Florida de Baru, Perez Zeledon. Since his death, Patton has continuously insisted that her husband’s death was a suicide gone wrong. Yesterday, during closing arguments, and based on expert te...

The defense of U.S. citizen, Ann Maxine Patton, on trial since Monday in Costa Rica on charges of murdering her husband, John Felix Bender, received a serious blow as a forensic doctor “ruled out,” the chance that her husband committed suicide. Bender died from a gunshot wound to the head. In her initial testimony on Monday, Patton stated that she did not murder her husband, but rather that Ben...

A bill is being prepared to impose taxes on money which enters the country seeking to exploit the gap between interest rates in local currency and in dollars. Furthermore President Chinchilla has issued a directive to state banks to stop competing with each other to attract investments from large institutions, such as the Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad, the Social Security Department, ...

The trial of Ann Maxine Patton, 42, began in Costa Rica on Monday. The U.S. woman is facing first-degree murder charges stemming from the death of her husband, John Felix Bender. Prosecutors say the woman shot her husband in the head. The alleged murder occurred in January 2010, on the 4th floor of the couple’s mansion, located on a 5,000-acre estate in Baru, Perez Zeledon, in Costa Rica. The P...

Puntarenas, Costa Rica – An international team of scientists has just returned from an ocean drilling expedition on board the JOIDES Resolution, near the Pacific coast of Costa Rica, designed to study the subduction zone where the Cocos tectonic plate dips beneath the Caribbean plate. This fault boundary was responsible for causing two earthquakes earlier this year, on September 5 and October 23. ...

Guyana was routed 7-0 by Costa Rica in the final match of the world cup qualifiers in San Jose last night. AFP reported that Costa Rica needed a home victory over winless Guyana to ensure advancement and the Ticos struck quickly, Randall Brenes finding the net in the ninth minute and Cristian Gamboa adding another Costa Rican goal in the 13th minute. Brenes scored again AFP said in the secon...

If you are looking for a legitimate hardcore fitness location in Costa Rica, look no further than MC Gym in Santa Ana Costa Rica, 2 minutes North of Forum 1 Office center in Pozos de Santa Ana, take a right at the Lagar construction store down Calle El Lagar, drive 250 meters, and look to your right for the sign and parking lot (logo pictured above in this article). There is plenty of park...

Children living near traditional plantations in Costa Rica are exposed to twice as much of the insecticide chlorpyrifos compared to children living near organic plantations, a study reports. More than half of the 140 studied children -- mostly indigenous Ngäbe and Bribri -- had higher daily exposures than what is considered safe by U.S. standards. Residential use of the pesticide, which has been l...

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) has overturned a prohibition on IVF in Costa Rica saying that it infringed provisions under the American Convention on Human Rights. The ban was originally implemented by the Costa Rican Government in an effort to protect human life. Costa Rica's Supreme Court ruled in 2000 that the practice of discarding 'spare' embryos in IVF was unconstitution...

One of my favorite year end activities is watching the local version of the bulls. Ticos have developed their own version of bull fighting where the bull is the aggressor and the fans or “improvised bullfighters” try to get as close as possible without injury. The best runs feature a few poor souls running for their lives and possibly being tossed or trampled but hopefully with no serious inju...

Huge, not-to-be-missed, ‘Previously Owned Book Sale’ on Saturday January 19th, 2013 10:00am to 2:00pm (no early birds, please) at the Pan-American School, 300m. south of El Rodeo Hotel/Restaurant, San Antonio de Belén. Browse for gently used books, DVDs, CDs and current magazines: treasures that you always wanted but never got round to purchasing, or that you never even knew existed. Nibbl...

It's 9 am in San Jose, Costa Rica, a cold day and not many cars mark the end of a battle for survival, where only the lucky ones, the strongest and the brave ones wake up to another day on the streets of the "Suiza Centroamericana". Costa Rica is a country where tourism promoted by our natural beauty is the standard to an  unprecedented paradise. However, we suffer many illnesses as all ci...

Today is the last day employers have to pay the annual Christmas Bonus (Aguinaldo). In an interview with La Extra on Wednesday, Labor Minister Olman Segura stated that employers who don't pay the bonus are subject to strong penalties, including jail time. Segura said that it would be embarrassing for any employer to be penalized for not paying what is a right every worker has, and explained tha...

Note: This article is a real life experience of a pig farm in Guanacaste Costa Rica. If you eat Chicharrones, you need to know where they come from and how the process works. This day has been in the works for months, the one my brother-in-law has been threatening me with. I'm back on the enormous rice farm in Guanacaste. I've had a day to settle in and fired off about 150 pictures wanderin...

The Social Security universal health care system (Caja), faced with higher costs and unfavorable demographics, is getting tough with employers who fall behind in paying into the benefit fund. In what Caja financial manager Gustavo Picado termed "unprecedented in the life of the institution," the institution filed a court suit against an Upala man who is charged with withholding benefits from an...

The bill to give longterm gay couples the same legal benefits as conventionally wed couples finally made it to debate Tuesday on the floor of the Legislative Assembly, only to have discussion blocked by recesses. The Libertarian Movement, Renovacion Costarricense Party's Justo Orozco and the (also Evangelical) Renovacion Nacional Party called three 15-minute recesses in quick succession before ...

While the United States stares into the abyss of the fiscal cliff Jan. 1, the Social Security universal health care system (Caja) faces another chasm -- a medical one. The University of Costa Rica has given the Caja notice this month that, due to a 5.3 billion colon deficit in the past several years, it will terminate its contract to run 45 routine medical treatment centers in three of the most...

Costa Rican coffee exporters have decided to team up against what they consider organized crime, which causes losses over $3 million. For over a year, criminal gangs have been stealing coffee containers and many have even reached their destination country full of debris. To date more than 18 containers have been stolen. As part of the modus operandi, which is very diverse, containers were stole...

A 51 year old agriculture teacher in both high school and primary school, was sentenced to 45 years in prison for paying students between 15,000 and 20,000 colones to have sex with him. The sentence was handed down in a Bribri, Talamanca, court in Limon province. The judges extended defendant Jorge Alberto Conejo's preventive detention for another six months while his sentence is automatically ...

"Nosarans were treated to a colorful display this past Saturday December 8th, as the Nosara High School Christmas Festival kicked off with a series of “bangs”, followed by floats, music, and dance." Over 1.300 people came out ready for lights, sounds and sights with families, teens, and the young-at-heart lining the main strip of town from Super Nosara to the airport in order to see all the mar...

It was good news for vehicle fleet owners and mixed news for motorcycle riders last week. Owners of fleets of vehicles, due to paying a stiff hike in the annual Marchamo circulation permits, will get a 10% reduction come January. Motorcycle owners will also get a healthy reduction in the 12,500 colon marchamos, down to 8,500. But they have to wait until 2014 to get it. It is unlikely that biker...

If you are building a house in Costa Rica and want birds to come, don't make the same mistake that developers of Sabana Park in western San Jose made in the last century: make sure the trees you plant are native. After non-native trees were chopped and native species replaced them, some 20 bird species who evidently had felt slighted, have returned -- in a big way, reports La Nacion. The vis...

RACSA, the subsidiary of the once-telecommunications monopoly ICE, promises ultra-fast Internet communications are coming for their customers next January. Company manager Orlando Cascante blamed delays on RACSA's Swedish partner, Via Europa, for the January target date for offering the service. Not only is service to be faster but it will be much cheaper. RACSA's customers have longed for a...

During the first 15 days of November, the beginning of tourist season, the tourist police reported an increase in the number of crimes against property. At the same time, Jeison Vargas, tourist police chief in Guiones, assured that this is what the tourist police are here for and that they are visiting the area businesses every day. The police advise taking necessary precautions to ensure that ...

Bebidas Florida manager Ramon Mendiola was presented with the "Entrepreneur of the Year 2012" award Wednesday night by the financial publication El Financiero, the local equivalent of The Wall Street Journal. The company began and continues to be Costa Rica's primary producer of beer (including best selling Imperial) and other beverages. The newspaper also chose Foreign Trade Minister Anabel Go...

The national electrical monopoly ICE has chosen 11 projects of clean private industry to buy 140 megawatts of generation power for this energy starved nation. Among them are five projects of wind energy totaling 100 megawatts nearly three times cheaper than ICE itself can generate it. The other six are hydroelectric to produce 40 megawatts. In the bidding, the cheapest source was a wind ener...

Costa Rica's female judicial functionaries may not wear miniskirts, low necklines, tight blouses or strapless wear. So decided a majority of judges this week. But, lest feminists think this is discriminatory, men may not wear earrings and visible tattoos. (Fortunately, facial tattooing is rare here.) The dress code was approved by vote Nov. 5. The 11,000 judicial branch workers were notified...

Nowhere is the generation gap between Costa Rican youth and adults more marked than on the subject of sex education. Evangelical adults and Catholic bishops tend to believe that such instruction should be left to largely ill-informed parents. A recent survey of kids 15-19 years old reveals that 92% feel that 13 years old is not too soon to begin learning about sex and 60% would like to see it t...

The powerful public employee union ANEP and the Restaurant Chamber have combined forces to aid restaurant table staff who may be fired in the wake of an earlier Constitutional court decision regarding tips. The ruling squeezed restaurateurs who, with the addition of tips, were forced to pay more to Social Security benefits and severance pay. So restaurant owners have been firing their table sta...

Foreign drug cartels lost tons of narcotics in a week to police here and in Panamanian waters. Local police captured three truck shipments and Panamanian authorities along with U.S. patrols cooperated in another blow. After a chase that began in Costa Rican waters, a U.S. Coast Guard frigate and Panamanian patrol boat trapped a semi-submersible craft after an unarmed U.S. Orion P-3 patrol aircr...

Costa Rica ranks 48th in Transparency International’s 2012 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) which measures perceived public sector corruption in 176 countries. Costa Rica’s score in the 2012 survey is 54 on a scale of 0 (perceived to be highly corrupt) to 100 (perceived to be very clean). The 2012 CPI was calculated using an improved methodology which does not allow to compare the data with p...

The Chamber of Industry opposed a rate increase by the Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad, citing lack of control in the state run company's expenditures. A statement from the Chamber of Industries of Costa Rica (ICRC) reads: Industrialists have opposed rate increase requested by ICE for 2013 -Requests have been made to ARESEP to review and correct estimates of demand in order not to...

Most (100) of the 234 known Costa Ricans in prison abroad got there because of narcotics, according to a recent study by Immigration in Costa Rica. The others (23) were nabbed for robberies. And most of them ran afoul of U.S. police (95), 31 in Panama, 29 in Mexico and 22 in Nicaragua, the count shows. But Immigration sub-director Freddy Montero says some data from the U.S. is still pending. ...

In the past The Costa Rica Star has published extensively on Monsanto and GMO products. The official response to the request by Monsanto for seed planting and research is being hampered by lobbyists who are opposed to the concept. Elfinancierocr.com reports that "The National Biosafety Technical Commission requested further studies on the impacts of transgenic corn planting in Costa Rica by ...

Thud! That's the sound of the other shoe dropping in the case of the corruption riddled construction of the northern border road, Route 1856. And it was dropped by the Comptroller General's Office filing charges against 21 officials and ex-officials. An investigation by lawmakers in the Legislative Assembly was the first shoe, but it had no power of punishment -- that is up to the courts. But t...

Danger was averted during a river cleanup on Sunday, November 18, when a plastic container of toxic insecticide was found near the mouth of the Nosara River. About 15 people were participating in the cleanup when one stumbled upon the jar and noticed its red label warning of the highly toxic contents, related Javier Hernandez Jiron, president of the fishing association Asociación de Pescadores ...

Wikimedia Commons Recent news from the Phoenix Business Journal revealed that a Costa Rica-based investment firm purchased more than $12 million in cash to acquire an office complex in Arizona's capital. In October, The Costa Rica Star reported on the acquisition of North American Breweries Holdings by Florida Ice and Farm Company, S.A., a transaction valued at $388 million, also in cash. The t...

A petition by the Riteve inspection company for a huge 157% price hike in mandatory vehicle inspections in January has raised outcries of rage and pain from taxi owners and motorcyclists. The reaction from comments on social media ranges from "exorbitant" to "outrageous," among some less restrained comments. Motorcyclists and taxi owners will undoubtedly express their displeasure in more physic...