By Wendy Anders The number of women’s marches planned across the U.S. and around the globe for Saturday, January 21, the day after Donald Trump’s inauguration as president of the U.S., are growing exponentially. With 616 ‘sister march’ events organized and counting, and almost 1.5 million participants pledged across the planet, the Women’s March on Washington has spurred a global movement to...

Geneva, Jan. 18 — Last year was the hottest on record, with an average temperature 1.1 degrees Centigrade (2 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than in pre-industrial times, the World Meteorological Organization said on Wednesday. The WMO said it combined data from NASA, the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the British Meteorological Office and the European Centre for Medi...

By Wendy Anders A recent report by the World Bank shows some startling truths about economic inequality. Three of the world’s least equitable countries are Costa Rica’s neighbors, on the narrow Central American isthmus connecting Mexico with South America. Honduras, is ranked as the 6th most unequal by the World Bank, followed by Colombia, Brazil, Guatemala, and Panama in 10th place. The ...

The more than 70 Cubans at an inn operated by the Catholic charitable mission Caritas asked Friday for the United States to make an exception for those who had left the island and were already crossing Central America before the "wet foot/dry foot" immigration policy was revoked. "We only ask that they make an exception for those of us who were already on our way, that they let us continue and ...

As Juan walked to school one morning a year ago in El Salvador, two men on a motorbike sped by and fatally shot a boy on the street in front of him. The shooter took a good look at Juan's face. As a witness to a gang murder, Juan was now in the firing line. "They said I had to be part of their gang," said Juan, 15, who declined to give his real name for security reasons. Juan's mother, Te...

Former ExxonMobil Corp. Chairman and CEO Rex Tillerson, nominated by President-elect Donald Trump to be secretary of state, said Wednesday that he believed that the risk of climate change exists but that the effect of greenhouse gas emissions on global warming was hard to predict. Tillerson was asked several questions about climate change during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreig...

Food and nutrition security are not improving in Latin American - some 34 million people continue to suffer from malnutrition, 47.7 percent of children under age 5 suffer from anemia and 49.8 percent, approximately 1.3 million, have chronic malnutrition. The figures "have not varied ostensibly in the region, they remain the same and are very worrying," the World Food Program (WFP) regional dire...

Mexicans overwhelmingly say they oppose the wall U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has promised to build along their northern border. But in Mexico's Ciudad Juarez, where extensive fencing was erected by the United States to secure the border between 2007 and 2010, residents have a more nuanced view of what a wall can mean. They say the Juarez fence has both caused and relieved problems in the ...

The Itaipu dam, which is operated by Paraguay and Brazil, finished 2016 with record electricity production of 103.09 million MW hours, eclipsing China's Three Gorges Dam as the world's top generator of hydroelectric power, officials said Sunday. Itaipu's hydroelectric turbines achieved an operational efficiency level of 96 percent last year, a figure that exceeded the 94 percent goal set by the...

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...

The nature of a woman's orgasm has been a source of debate for over a century. Since the Victorian era, the pendulum has swung from the vagina to the clitoris, and to some extent back again. Today, the debate is stuck over whether an orgasm can be produced through vaginal stimulation alone, or if arousal of the external clitoris is always necessary. A new review by Concordia research...

Actress Carrie Fisher, known for her role as Princess Leia in "Star Wars," died Tuesday, December 27, she was 60 years old. Carrie Fisher was an actress, author and screenwriter, that became known worldwide for portraying Princess Leia, in the "Star Wars" films. "It is with a very deep sadness that Billie Lourd confirms that her beloved mother Carrie Fisher passed away at 8:55 this morning,"...

By Wendy Anders A tech researcher for IOActive, a security research firm, decided to play around on an in-flight screen to see if his investigative skills could detect any weak links in the computer systems. Well it turns out the systems do appear to be vulnerable, according to IOActive, who communicated their findings to Panasonic, one of the major creators of in-flight entertainment system...

Evacuation orders are in effect in coastal areas in four southern regions following a powerful magnitude-7.6 earthquake that hit Quellon, a town on Chile's Chiloe Island, prompting officials to issue a tsunami alert. Officials have not yet released casualty figures or damage estimates. The evacuation order and tsunami alert cover Biobio, La Araucania, Los Lagos and Los Rios regions, nationa...

Gaza City, Palestine, Dec 24 — The Islamist movements Hamas and Islamic Jihad welcomed on Saturday the resolution adopted by the United Nations Security Council against Jewish settlements and considered it a "change" in the policy of the international community. Hamas welcomes this resolution and welcomes the positive changes in international stances supporting Palestinian rights in international...

VATICAN CITY, Dec. 24 -- Pope Francis on Christmas Eve encouraged Catholics to turn away from consumerism and embrace the "smallness" of Baby Jesus. During his homily at the annual Midnight Mass in a packed St. Peter's Square, Francis said the humble story of Jesus' birth in a manger remains a guiding principle of Catholicism. "The Gospel reveals a paradox: it speaks of the emperor, the gove...

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 ...

Denisse Velasco has been suffering from acute anxiety since spring, when she narrowly escaped being abducted from a busy street in Guadalajara, Mexico. She was waiting at a bus stop one morning when a man jumped out of a taxi and tried to force her inside. Velasco suspects it was a drug trafficker intent on kidnapping her for ransom. "The same thing could happen again in any moment," Velasco...

Tackling climate change is the "biggest economic opportunity" in the history of the United States, no matter who holds political office, said Hollywood star and environmental activist Leonardo DiCaprio. "There are a few, very prominent people that still deny the overwhelming conclusions of the world's scientists that climate change is largely human-caused and needs immediate urgent attention,"...

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...

Verizon Communications Inc is looking at ways to modify its $4.8 billion deal to buy Yahoo Inc's core internet business after the technology company disclosed a second massive data breach, sources told Reuters on Thursday. Yahoo Inc shares fell almost 5 percent after the breach of data belonging to more than 1 billion users was disclosed, following another large hack reported in September. V...

Los Angeles, Dec. 14 — Yahoo Inc. said Wednesday that an "unauthorized third party" gained access to personal information from more than 1 billion e-mail accounts. This is a good time for Yahoo users to change their password, if they haven't in a while; source Facebook. "The investigation indicates that the stolen information did not include passwords in clear text, payment card data, or ba...

The 2016 Monitoring the Future (MTF) annual survey results released today from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) reflect changing teen behaviors and choices in a social media-infused world. The results show a continued long-term decline in the use of many illicit substances, including marijuana, as well as alcohol, tobacco, and misuse of some prescription medications, among the nation’s teen...

Geneva, Dec. 13 — Malaria has retreated in almost all of Latin America. Mosquito nets are key in preventing malaria transmission. Costa Rica is listed as free of malaria transmission by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and it, along with several other countries will be certified malaria-free by the World Health Organization (WHO) in coming years. The exceptions to thi...

Punta Arenas, Chile, Dec. 12 — Researchers are doing the science needed to help the planet survive "south of south," officials said Monday at the inauguration of the Scientific Circulation and Innovation Hackathon in the Chilean city of Punta Arenas, a forum that has attracted young entrepreneurs from seven South American countries. A whale watching excursion in Chile's far south, source Fac...

UNITED NATIONS, New York, Dec. 12 — Former Portuguese leader Antonio Guterres was sworn in Monday as the ninth secretary general of the United Nations, officially succeeding Ban Ki-moon after a decade of the South Korean's leadership. United Nation Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon at a special #UNGA meeting to pay tribute to him and to swear in incoming Secretary-General António Guterres (picture...

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...

The creation of protected areas and parks in Central America aimed at conserving tropical forests has pushed indigenous people off the land they have nurtured for generations, researchers said on Friday. Protected areas are more effective when the rights of indigenous people living on the land are formally recognized, said the report released on the sidelines of a U.N. conservation conference i...

(EFE).- The death toll in the electronic music concert fire last week in a converted warehouse in Oakland, California, has risen to 30, authorities said Sunday. Sgt. Ray Kelly, with the Alameda County Sheriff's Department, confirmed the figure at a press conference warning that the number of dead could rise further because there are still people missing in the wake of the tragedy. "We antic...

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...

Lack of sleep among the U.S. working population is costing the economy up to $411 billion a year, which is 2.28 percent of the country's GDP, a new report finds. Map showing economic costs of insufficient sleep across five OECD countries. Credit: RAND Corporation According to researchers at the not-for-profit research organisation RAND Europe, part of the RAND Corporation, sleep deprivation...

Addis Ababa, Dec. 1 — The United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) declared on Thursday the Mexican charrería, a traditional horseback practice in communities dedicated to the breeding and grazing cattle, as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Mexico's charreria, source Facebook. The decision was made by the Intergovernmental Committee during its annual...

The Washington, D.C.-based Global Commission on Drug Policy recently released its 2016 annual report, "Advancing Drug Policy Reform: A new approach to drug decriminalization", which details the destructive and harmful consequences of punitive drug policies and the need to reconsider reviewing current decriminalization models. The never-ending, and ineffectual 'war on drugs.' The report show...

Thomas Reuters Foundation - Nearly two in every five pregnancies among girls in El Salvador aged 10-12 are the result of rape and incest but the rapists nearly always go unpunished, a U.N. agency has said. Girls under 12 are four times more likely to get pregnant as a result of rape by stepfathers and relatives, mainly fathers, grandfathers, uncles and cousins, than girls aged 13 to 17, the U....

(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...

(EFE).- Representatives of the 27 countries that make up the Latin American Energy Organization, or Olade, underscored the need to promote sustainable development in the region at a meeting here Friday. Olade Executive Secretary Fernando Cesar Ferreira said at the organization's Meeting of Energy Ministers that "absolutely all the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean are doing something...

A 7.2 earthquake in the Ritcher scale struck El Salvador at 12:43 p.m. at a depth of 33 kilometers, some 96 miles southwest of Puerto Triunfo, El Salvador, and was felt in Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Guatemala. No injuries or damage have been reported, the Salvadoran Environment and Natural Resources Ministry said. The Nicaraguan government issued a tsunami alert for the country's entire Pacific...

By Wendy Anders Photo for illustrative purposes. Gay men prepare for pornography photo shoot, courtesy of Wikipedia. "Government bodies should function equally for all, not only for women," said Miguel Moctezuma Longoria, Ph.D., professor of development studies at the Autonomous University of Zacatecas (UAZ), reported NTR Zacatecas, a digital paper in north-central Mexico. Speaking on In...

GENEVA, Switzerland — The World Health Organization declared Friday the Zika virus is no longer an international public health emergency. Dengue, Chikungunya, and Zika are spread by the Aedes aegyptie mosquito (Wikimedia Commons) The WHO's Emergency Committee on Zika and microcephaly met for a fifth time and determined the mosquito-borne disease was no longer a global health threat under In...