The US government needs to present evidence that Russia interfered in last month's elections, a spokesman for President-elect Donald Trump said Thursday. "If the United States has clear proof of anyone interfering with our elections, we should make that known," Sean Spicer said in a conference call with reporters. "Right now we need to see further facts," the future White House press secret...

By Wendy Anders The Costa Rican Conservation Federation (FECON) and the Broad Front political party are preparing to file a case in the country’s constitutional court against the Costa Rican government, FECON announced in a statement on their website just before Christmas The environmental non-profit group says the government is violating the right to citizen participation in environmental m...

U.S President-elect Donald Trump said on Saturday he intends to dissolve his charitable foundation, the Donald J. Trump Foundation, which has been under investigation by the New York attorney general. Trump gave no timeline for winding down the foundation, but said in a statement that he wanted "to avoid even the appearance of any conflict with my role as President." He directed his counsel to ...

Editor’s note: The views expressed by guest columnists are not necessarily those of The Costa Rica Star, its advertisers, or its staff.  By Britt Nelson Kellyanne Conway, Trump's senior counsellor, is the real deal. Who would have thought that a girl from New Jersey who learned about life working on a blueberry farm would land a job as senior counselor to President-elect Dona...

Panama City, Dec. 20 — The opposition Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) said Tuesday that Dec. 20 should be a "day of national mourning" to mark the U.S. invasion of Panama, which began on Dec. 20, 1989. U.S. military invasion of Panama on Dec. 20, 1989; source Newsroom Panama. "The death of an undetermined number of Panamanians, the destruction of property representing thousands of mill...

Editor’s note: The views expressed by guest columnists are not necessarily those of The Costa Rica Star, its advertisers, or its staff.  By Britt Nelson (Wikimedia Commons) The Democrats last dying gasp for air collapsed Monday as Electoral College electors sealed the deal for President-elect Donald Trump to receive the oath of office on Jan. 20 thereby taking over the Executive Branch o...

Washington, Dec. 19 — Donald Trump yesterday received more than the 270 Electoral College votes he needed to confirm his victory in the Nov. 8 U.S. presidential election. The Electoral College's vote, comprised of 538 electors corresponding to all the members of Congress, is usually a mere formality to validate the number of electoral votes received in the November balloting by the winning pres...

President Barack Obama will leave office in January with US-Latin American relations in "better than ever" shape, his adviser for the region, Mark Feierstein, told EFE, adding that it would "make no sense" for President-elect Donald Trump to change US policy toward those nations too much. "US-Latin America relations are healthier now than they've ever been," said Feierstein, who is Obama's spec...

Editor’s note: The views expressed by guest columnists are not necessarily those of The Costa Rica Star, its advertisers, or its staff.  By Britt Nelson On Monday the U.S. Electoral College will officially certify the winner of presidential Campaign 2016 Donald J. Trump with a constitutionally required vote of its members who are mostly required to vote according to the will of the voters in t...

Editor’s note: The views expressed by guest columnists are not necessarily those of The Costa Rica Star, its advertisers, or its staff. By Britt Nelson All you need to do is take one look at Exxon Mobile Chairman and CEO Rex Tillerson to know President-elect Donald Trump means ‘business’ with his pick for U.S. Secretary of State. Tillerson is no gloomy, boring career politician turned diplom...

President-elect Donald Trump's rejection this weekend of U.S. intelligence analysts' conclusion that Russia intervened in the 2016 election to help him win the White House is the latest in a string of conflicts between Trump and the intelligence community he will command. Most of them involve Russia, which has grown increasingly aggressive - according to what U.S. intelligence agencies have tol...

Editor’s note: The views expressed by guest columnists are not necessarily those of The Costa Rica Star, its advertisers, or its staff.    By Britt Nelson Photo for illustrative purposes. So far President-elect Donald Trump has named three retired top military generals to two cabinet positions for Secretary of Defense, four-star Gen. James “Mad Dog” Mattis; and Homeland Securit...

By Wendy Anders The new payment service offered by Banco de Costa Rica, called Tucán, photo Facebook. Costa Rica’s left-leaning Citizen Action Party (PAC) legislator, Javier Cambronero, denounced a new advertising campaign by the state-owned Banco de Costa Rica (BCR) as sexist, and demanded they withdraw the publicity, reported Elperiodicocr.com, a Costa Rican digital news source yesterday....

Managua, Dec. 6 — "We are willing to pay (Costa Rica). We just want to clarify the accounts they are charging us" for US$6 million, said Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, after receiving the credentials from the new Costa Rican ambassador to Nicaragua, Eduardo Trejos. The San Juan River that divides Costa Rica and Nicaragua, photo credit AFP. The International Court of Justice in The Hagu...

Editor’s note: The views expressed by guest columnists are not necessarily those of The Costa Rica Star, its advertisers, or its staff.  By Britt Nelson Source: Flick Commons If President-elect Donald Trump’s choice of retired four-star Gen. James “Mad Dog” Mattis for Defense Secretary is any clue, let’s hope Pro-Life Trump nominates the most hard-nosed-conservative ‘hangin’ judge he can...

Shortly after Venezuela’s former president Hugo Chavez passed away, many news channels reported on the fortune he inherited by his family, from valuable properties, to car lots, mansions, planes, and a lot of money in offshore banks. According to Venezuelan news website Noticias Centro in an article published in 2015 “the late president’s family owns 17 country estates, totaling more than 100,0...

Editor’s note: The views expressed by guest columnists are not necessarily those of The Costa Rica Star, its advertisers, or its staff.  By Britt Nelson President Obama in a Rolling Stone magazine interview released Tuesday blamed Fox News for Hillary Clinton’s presidential loss to Republican billionaire Donald Trump. The exiting president said Clinton and the Democrats failed to reach wh...

By Wendy Anders Luis Alberto Monge Alvarez, Costa Rica President 1982-1986. Luis Alberto Monge Alvarez was a Costa Rican farmer and politician who served as President of Costa Rica from 1982 to 1986. He came from a humble farming family in Palmares and was involved from a young age in social and union movements, said Wikipedia. He passed away yesterday due to cardiac arrest at the San Ju...

The question of whether President-elect Donald Trump will run afoul of federal conflict-of-interest rules or the Constitution because of his extensive foreign investments has been the subject of intense scrutiny among legal and ethics scholars. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks to supporters as he takes the stage for a campaign event in Dallas, Monday, Sept. 14, 2015. (AP P...

Editor’s note: The views expressed by guest columnists are not necessarily those of The Costa Rica Star, its advertisers, or its staff.  By Britt Nelson Current Cuban leader, Raul Castro, talks with Elian Gonzalez. Welcome to a world without Fidel Castro. President-elect Donald Trump will be the first president since Dwight Eisenhower, who left office in 1961, not to have this Communist ...

London, Nov 26 — Former Cuban President Fidel Castro's human rights legacy is "a tale of two worlds," providing access to public services to the island's people while engaging in systematic repression, Amnesty International said Saturday. "Fidel Castro's legacy is a tale of two worlds. The question now is what human rights will look like in a future Cuba. The lives of many depend on it," Amnest...

(EFE).- U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said in a statement Saturday following Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro's death that he hoped the passing of the "brutal dictator" would usher in a new era of prosperity and freedom for the Caribbean island. Trump - whose first reaction was a brief tweet Saturday morning that simply read "Fidel Castro is dead!" - issued a full statement a few hou...

(EFE).- Cuban leader Fidel Castro has died at the age of 90, his brother, President Raul Castro, said Saturday in an address on state television. The Cuban revolutionary leader built a communist state, and for five decades defied the United States efforts to topple him. The leader of the historic Cuban Revolution died at 10.29pm Friday local time (3.29am Saturday GMT), and his remains will be c...

By Britt Nelson Tulsi Gabbard The Clintons. What will the future hold for these two aging, career politicians – Bill and Hillary -- now that their dream of a second Clinton administration has gone with the wind? At this point it’s time for the nation to say goodbye to the Clintons and give a warm welcome to Tulsi Gabbard. On Tuesday, aide to President-elect Donald Trump Kellyanne Conway ...

Editor’s note: The views expressed by guest columnists are not necessarily those of The Costa Rica Star, its advertisers, or its staff.  By Britt Nelson Four-star Gen. James “Mad Dog” Mattis was interviewed this weekend for Secretary of Defense. Daily Wire/Getty Images Seems as if losing the presidential election is not enough for the Democrats. They are continuing with their racist and ...

Washington, D.C., Nov. 17 — Three Democratic lawmakers on Thursday asked President Barack Obama to use his executive authority before leaving office to pardon the more than 750,000 undocumented young people known as "DREAMers" who were illegally brought to the U.S. as minors by their parents. Photo for illustrative purposes. The request was made by U.S. Representatives Luis Gutierrez, Lucil...

Editor’s note: The views expressed by guest columnists are not necessarily those of The Costa Rica Star, its advertisers, or its staff.    By Britt Nelson Source, Bloomberg. There is talk of Laura Ingraham, long-time conservative radio talk show host and Fox News contributor, becoming President-elect Donald Trump’s press secretary. Does it matter if Trump choses a press...

By Wendy Anders A family in Escazú forced into the street by a taxi parked on a sidewalk, photo published by the Accidentes en Costa Rica Facebook group. This Monday, a draft "Framework for Safe and Sustainable Mobility of People" was presented to the Costa Rican Legislative Assembly by Legislator Marcela Guerrero, as reported in elperiodicocr.com, a digital Spanish news source. The prop...

(Reuters) - Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador have agreed to join forces and seek support from Mexico to forge a joint strategy in response to Donald Trump winning the U.S. presidency, El Salvador's foreign minister told Reuters on Wednesday. Trump's election upset has sent shockwaves through Mexico and Central America, which rely heavily on U.S. remittances and bilateral trade.President-elec...

Press Release / The Costa Rican Minister of Environment and Energy, Edgar Gutierrez Espeleta, and his counterpart of the Principality of Andorra, Silvia Calvo Armengol, signed this Monday in Marrakech, Morocco, the memorandum of understanding on Environment and Protection of Biodiversity. With this agreement both countries will exchange experiences in areas like the implementation of a carbon ...

Editor’s note: The views expressed by guest columnists are not necessarily those of The Costa Rica Star, its advertisers, or its staff. By Britt Nelson A Trump fan posted this on Facebook. There is much speculation going around about how the new President–elect Trump administration and his evolving foreign policy might affect Costa Rica along with the rest of Central America. Immediat...

Editor’s note: The views expressed by guest columnists are not necessarily those of The Costa Rica Star, its advertisers, or its staff.  By Britt Nelson As news of Donald J. Trump’s presidential win starts sinking in around the world, President-elect Trump has met with President Obama in the Oval Office for a smooth transition of power, students are walking out of classes in Berkeley, and orga...

Briefly overwhelmed by web traffic from the U.S., several websites were down for a time Tuesday night. The spike in searches on moving to Canada as U.S. election results come in, Search Engine Land. As it became clear over the course of election night in the U.S. that Donald Trump was on track to becoming the 45th U.S. President, searches related to moving to Canada spiked. These included a...

Washington, DC, Nov. 9 — Massachusetts and Nevada endorsed the legalization of recreational cannabis use, as did California which, like Nebraska also opted to uphold the death penalty in polling conducted alongside the United States presidential elections. Map reveals minimum hourly wage needed to afford a 2-bedroom home in every U.S. state, source NLIHC. California supported the motion to ...

Editor’s note: The views expressed by guest columnists are not necessarily those of The Costa Rica Star, its advertisers, or its staff.    By Britt Nelson The winning Trump Train -- with hot smoking brakes, low on coal and packed with “deplorables” -- pulled up to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue early Wednesday morning and parked in front of the White House. In a come-from-behind h...

Washington, DC, Nov. 8 —  Results of U.S. elections this Tuesday will come in step by step, beginning with the closing of Electoral Colleges on the East Coast, and ending with the states of Hawaii and Alaska, the tips of a country with an area of 3.8 million sq. miles (9.8 million sq. kilometers) that spans six time zones. People wait in line to vote early at Downtown Summerlin on October 26...

Washington, DC, Nov. 7 — The U.S. government announced Monday that on Election Day it will devote special attention to monitoring voting in 67 jurisdictions in 28 of the 50 states to guarantee that citizens - particularly minorities - may freely exercise their right to vote. Voters in the U.S., photo for illustrative purposes from Facebook. In a statement, the Department of Justice explaine...

(EFE).- Nicaraguans are heading to the polls Sunday for general elections, with six candidates, including incumbent Daniel Ortega, vying to be the Central American nation's president. Some 4.34 million people are eligible to cast ballots in the general elections, choosing a new president, vice president, 90 National Assembly members and 20 Central American Parliament, or Parlacen, members. T...

An accidental early posting of 2016 election results by NBC affiliate WRCB TV in Chattanooga, TN, source Facebook. Moscow, Nov. 4 — The founder of WikiLeaks Julian Assange said on Friday that the U.S. establishment will not allow Republican candidate Donald Trump to become the next U.S. president in the upcoming election. Assange said that Trump is supported by only one U.S. power group — t...

Editor’s note: The views expressed by guest columnists are not necessarily those of The Costa Rica Star, its advertisers, or its staff. By Britt Nelson source Facebook FBI Director James Comey has chosen justice over politics in his decision to get a warrant and examine hundreds of thousands of emails found on a computer shared by Huma Abedin, a long-time aide to presidential candidate H...