Illustrative image. (Flickr Commons)Journalist Pedro Tamayo has been shot dead at his home in the Mexican Gulf coast state of Veracruz, the Aztec nation's deadliest for members of the media, officials said Thursday. Two assailants arrived late Wednesday in a vehicle at the crime reporter's home in the town of Tierra Blanca, fired at him in front of his family and then fled the scene. The 43...

The number of undocumented Cuban migrants arriving in the U.S. has quintupled over the past five years, increasing dramatically after the December 2014 announcement by Presidents Barack Obama and Raul Castro of a normalization of relations between Washington and Havana. Fewer than 8,000 Cubans reached the U.S. in the 2011 fiscal year, compared with more than 44,000 so far in fiscal 2016, which ...

Cartoon by Clay JonesGavin Eugene Long, the African-American former U.S. Marine accused of killing three police officers in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, left several videos posted online in which he declared he wanted to "fight back" against police for the shootings of blacks. "You gotta fight back - that's the only way a bully knows to quit," Long said in one of his videos, using the pseudonym of ...

Illustrative image. (Flickr Commons)A black former US Marine today killed three police officers and wounded three others in Baton Rouge, Louisiana on his birthday, in an incident similar to the one ten days ago in Dallas, Texas, where another black former soldier killed five policemen. The perpetrator of this new police shooting was identified as Gavin Eugene Long, a former marine who turned 2...

Wikimedia CommonsIsraeli police on Sunday arrested a Palestinian man carrying explosives in his backpack as he was about to board a tram in the center of Jerusalem, a police spokesman said. The 20-year-old Palestinian, who lives in the West Bank, was arrested after raising the suspicion of a security guard near the light rail stop on Jaffa Road. The guard, who asked to check the contents of...

Turkey state TV headquarters after the coup attempt. Anadolu AgencyTurkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday said the attempted coup was a "gift of God to cleanse the military". "This act is a great gift of God to us because the military will be cleansed," the president said at a press conference in Istanbul, adding that those behind the attempted coup would have to pay for their "tre...

Turkey's army claimed Friday that it has taken full control of the country with the aim of "restoring democracy." "All international accords will remain in effect. We expect to maintain good relations with all countries," the General Staff said in a statement. At the same time, the Anadolu news agency said that the army chief of staff, Gen. Hulusi Akar, had been taken hostage by a group of s...

Source: RFIAt least 77 people have died in the alleged terrorist attack on Bastille day by a truck driver in Nice, the mayor of Nice Christian Estrosi reported. French president Francois Hollande and prime minister Manuel Valls are now in the inter-ministerial crisis cell due to the attack. A spokeswoman for the Elysee Palace told Efe that Hollande went to the crisis cell in the Ministry of...

French President François Hollande. EFE/FileFrench President Francois Hollande defended himself on Thursday after he was criticized for having hired a personal hairdresser with a gross salary of 9,895 euros ($10,099) a month, noting that he has reduced the costs of the presidency as well as his salary by 30 percent since he came to the Elysee in May 2012. On the occasion of the French National...

Wikimedia Commons A New Jersey resident who was gored as he ran with the bulls in Spain's famous San Fermin festival in Pamplona on Wednesday has described the experience as the highlight of his life. Matthew Levin, 39, had clambered onto a fence during his first ever running of the bulls when a charging bull slammed into him and his friends completely by accident, driving a horn into his l...

Joaquin "Chapo" Guzman. Source: Wikimedia Commons Federal officials' decision to post a photograph of drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" (Shorty) Guzman on social media to confirm that the Sinaloa cartel leader had not escaped from prison "shows the lack of credibility of our authorities," defense attorney Jose Refugio Rodriguez said Monday. Government Secretary Miguel Angel Osorio posted an ...

Supporters of President Maduro rally in Caracas EFE/AGENCIA VENEZOLANA DE NOTICIAS/ Some 25,000 Venezuelans, according to official estimates, crossed the border into Colombia on Sunday to buy food and medicines in the city of Cucuta after the Venezuelan government said it would open border crossings for 12 hours. People began crossing the Simon Bolivar international bridge, which links the ...

Source: IS Aqam The Islamic State (IS) terrorist group shot down on Saturday a Russian military helicopter in the central Syrian province of Homs, killing all of its crew, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported on Sunday. The aircraft fell in the wilderness of the ancient city of Palmyra, SOHR added. The London-based NGO gave no further details on the downing of the heli...

Wikimedia Commons A terrifying and chaotic running of the bulls on Friday left a toll of 16 thrill-seekers injured and two of the eight participants gored were in critical condition, officials said. Of the wounded, five were American citizens, three of whom suffered goring injuries, the regional government said. One American, identified only by his initials P.G., received a 10 centimeter...

Ex Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev said on Saturday that the rhetoric used by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in its summit in Poland is a sign of war. "All the rhetoric used in Warsaw is almost a declaration of war against Russia," he said to Russian news agency Interfax, adding that "the Cold War is preparing to get hot." The decisions made by NATO, such as the deployment...

By Antonio Hermosin for EFE Armed with reggae, manga and the internet, Japan's political parties are going all out to woo its young voters for Sunday's elections when for the first time voting will be opened to 18-year-olds. Japanese presidential candiate Yohei Miyake. Wikimedia Commons Sunday's Upper House elections are the first national elections where the voting age has been reduced ...

Wikimedia Commons President Barack Obama on Wednesday announced that the scheduled reduction of U.S. troops in Afghanistan will be decelerated and, when he leaves office next January, 8,400 U.S. soldiers will still remain in that country, significantly more than the 5,500 he initially had promised. In a White House speech, Obama noted that "The security situation in Afghanistan remains prec...

Wikimedia Commons Peruvian scientist Marino Morikawa, who "revived" polluted wetlands in 15 days using nanotechnology, now plans to try to clean up Lake Titicaca and the Huacachina lagoon, an oasis in the middle of the desert. El Cascajo, an ecosystem of roughly 50 hectares (123 acres) in Chancay district, located north of Lima, began its recovery in 2010 with two inventions that Morikawa c...

Wikimedia Commons Four police officers were killed and five others wounded Monday in a suicide bombing near the Prophet's Mosque in Medina, the Saudi interior ministry said.   The attacker detonated explosives taped to his body when police intercepted him as he was walking toward the mosque that holds the remains of the prophet Muhammad.   The blast occurred shortly ahead...

Flickr Commons Police around the globe arrested 79 suspected members of an international child pornography network on Monday. The arrests were made in 18 different countries, including the United States, Spain, and several Latin American countries, following 200 raids in 47 cities as part of Operation No Borders. At least 19 of the arrests were made in Spain, primarily in Madrid. Span...

Scores of animal rights activists gathered in front of a FedEx depot in western Hong Kong on Sunday to protest against the international shipping company for transporting shark fins, an epa journalist reports. The demonstrators, from WildAid and Hong Kong Shark Foundation (HKSF), dressed in blood-stained shark costumes and wielded signs reading "When the buying stops, the killing can too", alon...

Nighttime drone footage of the strike. Al-Manar TV Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah has destroyed two positions of the Islamic State (IS) militants in northeastern Lebanon, according to Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV network. According to Al-Manar, the positions were located in the regions of Baalbek and Ras al-Zaytun, and the attack has also killed or wounded jihadists inside the locations. The...

El Educador YouTube Channnel Mexican teachers opposed to an education overhaul partially lifted their blockade of roads in the southern state of Chiapas to allow deliveries of gasoline, state oil company Pemex said Thursday. The number of service stations in Chiapas without fuel has fallen from 90 to 27, Pemex executive Jorge Martinez told Radio Formula. Members of Section 7 of the milit...

By Wendy Anders The BBC confirmed today that a German tourist died yesterday while purportedly posing for a photo of himself leaping off a cliff as he toured the 15th-century Peruvian Incan citadel of Machu Picchu. Oliver Park, 51, said the BBC, “ignored safety signs and warnings from wardens and went into a restricted area close to the edge of a cliff on Wednesday, according to local offici...

Source: IKEA Swedish furniture giant Ikea said Wednesday it was recalling 29 million dressers and chests in the MALM line from the U.S. market after a sixth child was crushed to death when one of the pieces fell on him. The recall also covers 6.6 million drawers sold in Canada, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, or CPSC, said. "The recalled chests and dressers are unstable if they a...

TRT English Twitter Suicide-bombings Tuesday at Istanbul's Atatürk airport left 36 people dead and 120 wounded, Turkish public television network TRT said Among the dead are five police officers, TRT's English service reported. Istanbul Gov. Vasip Sahin said earlier that the assault was carried out by three suicide terrorists. The explosions occurred around 9:30 p.m., TRT said. An ...

Activists staged a protest Tuesday morning in front of the Canadian Embassy just south of Manila calling for the removal of garbage shipped from Canada to the Philippines, an epa journalist on the scene reports. About 25 members of the EcoWaste Coalition gathered on a concrete median in the middle of the road in front of the embassy, with many wearing gas masks and straw hats. In addition to...

Wikimedia Commons The Metropolitan Police, or Met, is on heightened alert following reports of xenophobic incidents after the Brexit victory in the referendum on the European Union, reported the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan. The mayor has asked the Met to be "extra vigilant" after the Polish embassy in the United Kingdom expressed its shock at xenophobia against the Polish community in this ...

By Wendy Anders Costa Rica became a signatory to the new global Political Declaration on HIV/AIDS at the 2016 High Level Meeting on Ending AIDS held in New York, June 8-10. With this, the country committed to increase AIDS prevention activities to significantly reduce transmission over the next five years, and to become the second country in Latin America after Cuba to eliminate mother-to-ch...

EFE file The Venezuelan opposition confirmed Sunday that it is ready to start the process to bring about the referendum to revoke the mandate of President Nicolas Maduro, even if they are deprived of their liberty. The mayor of Caracas, Antonio Ledezma, imprisoned since February 2015, released a message in which he congratulated the Venezuelan people for "the heroic journey made this week,"...

Wikimedia Commons The Iraqi forces retook control over Al-Mualimin neighborhood of Fallujah from the Islamic State, or IS, group and advanced to al-Golan, the last IS stronghold in Fallujah, Iraqi joint command said in a statement on Saturday. According to the statement, the troops managed on Saturday to completely liberate Al-Mualimin neighborhood in the city of Fallujah, 50 kilometers (31...

Pixabay Commons The Japanese pornography industry issued an apology on Thursday and vowed to make changes following the arrest of the managers of a modeling agency who forced a young woman into doing X-rated movies. Japan Intellectual Property Association, representing the adult film industry, among others, issued a statement saying that it "deeply regrets that we had failed to take the ini...

Michael Temer with Dilma Rousseff Brasilia, Jun 21 (EFE).- The speaker of Brazil's lower house of Congress, currently sidelined pending trial on corruption charges, said Tuesday that he will feel "proud" if the case against suspended President Dilma Rousseff ends with her impeachment. "I'm neither a hero nor a villain in the case" against Rousseff, Eduardo Cunha told a press conference. ...

Panama City, Jun 21 (EFE).- Security at the inauguration of the Panama Canal expansion next Sunday will be assured by more than 11,000 agents along with special measures like closing the airspace over the waterway beginning the day before, the authorities announced Tuesday. Eleven heads of state and government, the king emeritus of Spain and delegations of some 50 countries have confirmed their...

Truth-out.org Mexico City, Jun 21 (EFE).- Clashes with security forces have not intimidated Mexican teachers opposed to what they see as unfair education reform and promise to continue their protests, even as the government investigates the clash between teachers and police in the southern part of the country that left at least eight dead. Leaders of the militant CNTE teachers union said th...

Wikimedia Commons Algeciras, Spain, Jun 20 (EFE).- The Spanish Civil Guard in the southern port of Algeciras seized 280 kilos (615 lbs.) of cocaine hidden in a container shipped from Brazil, the security corps reported in a statement. An investigation by Spain's Civil Guard aided by Brazilian police intelligence found the drug hidden in a container transporting a legal cargo of sugar. On...

Wikimedia Commons San Juan, Jun 18 (EFE).- At least 500 activists of Puerto Rico's independence movement demonstrated in Old San Juan this Saturday in anticipation of a visit by the U.N.'s Special Committee on Decolonization, to arrive next Monday in this U.S. commonwealth. Liliana Laboy, a member of the organizing committee of the demonstration, told EFE that the protest this Saturday had ...

Orlando Police Twitter Miami, Jun 17 (EFE).- Omar Seddique Mateen, perpetrator of a mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, that left 50 people dead - including the attacker - and 53 wounded, exchanged text messages with this wife, Noor Zahi Salman, throughout the assault, local media reported Friday Apparently, according to the NBC News channel, Salman's mother called her dau...

New quick-action gesture iPhone 6s Beijing, Jun 17 (EFE).- Chinese authorities have ordered technology giant Apple to suspend sales of its latest iPhone models in Beijing due to a lawsuit over a patent violation. The Chinese capital's Intellectual Property Bureau put sales of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus on hold pending a lawsuit over infringement of a patent held by a Chinese company. ...

By Elisa Vasquez Panama, Jun 15 (EFE).- In Panama, "the first to disrespect nature are the officials appointed to defend it," according to Ligia Arreaga, an environmentalist engaged in activism for a decade on behalf of the rainforest of Darien that spreads across Panama's border with Colombia. The Central American country has "extraordinarily good" laws, what is lacking are decent officials...