Cartoon by Clay Jones Sports shooter Virginia Thrasher from the United States won the first gold medal awarded at the Rio Olympics, edging Chinese rival Du Li Saturday in the women's 10m air rifle finals. After her victory, Thrasher spoke about gun laws in her country, which has greatly suffered from gun violence in recent years. Thrasher won gold with a score of 208 points, a new Olympi...

Wikimedia Commons Dozens of people have died from an unknown disease in the northwestern Nagaland area of Myanmar over the last two months, an epa journalist reported. As of this morning, the sickness has claimed the lives of 40 people, marking an increase after Friday's death toll of 39, according to Shu Maung, Assistant General Secretary of the Council of Naga Affairs. Most victims of th...

The radioactive material reported stolen earlier this weekend in northern Mexico has been recovered, national emergency management chief Luis Felipe Puente said. "The radioactive source has been found and the protocol for its recovery has been implemented," Puente said in a Twitter post. Emergency management officials issued an alert Friday following the theft of the radioactive material, sa...

Police officers stand guard at the entrance of the Mossack Fonseca law firm office in Panama City April 12, 2016. REUTERS/Carlos Jasso American Joseph Stiglitz, co-recipient of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Economics, has quit an expert commission the Panamanian government created on April 30 to evaluate the country's financial system in the wake of the Panama Papers leak, officials said. Swiss e...

Flickr Commons By Hector Pereira A litter of five puppies has to go home from a veterinarian's office without getting the necessary vaccinations, because now pets in Venezuela suffer from the same shortage of medicines as people do as a result of the country's economic crisis. Briceida Niño, a mom in Caracas, took her five pups to one of the veterinarian centers assigned to the "Nevado M...

Club Sport Herediano Costa Rica's Club Sport Herediano clinched a crucial point with a 1-1 tie against Panama's Plaza Amador in the first Group G match of the 2016-2017 Concacaf Champions League. Amador, leader in the Panamanian first division, took an early advantage when defender Sergio Ortega connected with his left foot just 12 minutes into the match. The reigning champions of Costa ...

Trumpoleon. Cartoon by Clay Jones By Britt Nelson Editor’s note: The views expressed by guest columnists are not necessarily those of The Costa Rica Star, its advertisers, or its staff. Just the other day a thrill-seeking sky diver jumped out of a perfectly good airplane at 25,000 feet without a parachute and survived. Donald Trump just did the same thing; but, will he survive a 15-point...

Bring the best swimming trunks and get ready for a soak filled aventure at the Tobogan Water Slide at the Buena Vista Lodge! This World Famous Tobogan Water Slide is rated #3 in the World by the Travel Channel. Climb up the Costa Rican Rainforest Mountains until you reach the top of the Water Slide. This 1,365 feet Water Slide is made of volcanic mud and concrete, guaranteed to thrill from begin...

Cartoon by Clay Jones U.S. health authorities announced this week the start of the first safety trials for a vaccine against the Zika virus just as the disease has appeared in Florida with at least 15 people having been infected by locally-hatched mosquitoes. The National Institute of Health announced Wednesday that the first phase of the studies is aimed at establishing the safety of the e...

Wikimedia Commons Controversy has sparked in France after a French NGO decided to arrange a day at a water park near Marseille for women who wear the Islamic full-cover swimsuit known as "burkini", while French authorities plan to ban it. On its Facebook page, Smile 13 announced the organization of the day on Sept. 17 at SpeedWater Park, giving access only to women wearing burkinis, while m...

Olympic mascots are seen at the Sambadrome in Rio de Janeiro, Feb. 7, 2016. (Reuters OMX) A bus ferrying Chinese journalists from the airport to the Olympic village in Rio de Janeiro, was taken by surprise when a shootout broke out and although no reporters were harmed in the incident, six local people were reported dead, according to the South China Morning Post. The shootout occurred Wedn...

By Evelyn S. Gonzalez, Florida International University Amphibians that can tolerate higher temperatures are likely to fare better against disease, habitat loss and climate change, according to researchers. FIU biologist Maureen Donnelly contributed to two studies on the ability of frogs and amphibians to survive challenges brought on by a changing planet — challenges she said could lead to ex...

Wikimedia Commons The State of Israel has been buying gas masks for decades from suppliers who also sold them to the Nazi regime, Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot reported Wednesday. The country obtains its gas masks from two companies: the German firm Drager and the American MSA, which used to be German and whose previous name was Auer. Based on recent findings, both companies manufactu...

Wikimedia Commons President Daniel Ortega will seek re-election to a third consecutive term in November, this time with his wife, Rosario Murillo, on the ticket as vice president in a contest from which Nicaragua's main opposition was pushed aside by government maneuvers. The 70-year-old Ortega filed papers Tuesday with the national elections commission to run for a fourth term as president...

The splendid gardens of La Paz are located on the slopes of the Poas volcano, just an hour from San Jose, in the central highlands. This area is rich in bio diversity thanks to an altitude of that varies between 4,000 and 5,000 feet, allowing for both cloud forest and rain forest to co-exist. Be prepared for a truly magical experience. Here, visitors will find the largest butterfly observatory in ...

A municipal health worker fumigates the restroom area of a shopping mall as part of the city's effort to prevent the spread of Zika virus' vector, the Aedes aegypti mosquito, in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, in this January 26, 2016 file photo. REUTERS/Jorge Cabrera/Files The trendy Wynwood district in Miami's urban center has become ground zero in the fight against the Zika virus in the U.S., with f...

Wikimedia Commons A total of 4,027 refugees and migrants have died in the Mediterranean in the first seven months of this year, a 35 percent increase compared with the same period of 2015, the International Organization for Migration, or IOM, reported on Tuesday.   Drowning was the main cause of death though fatalities sometimes resulted from violence among people on the crowded boa...

Wikimedia Commons At least three children died and their parents were wounded in an air strike on Tuesday by a U.S. drone that missed its target in Al-Wadiah, in southern Yemen, witnesses told EFE. The bombing destroyed the house of the family, located in the village of Al-Shemil in the district of Al-Wadiah, birthplace of Yemeni President Abdo Rabu Mansur Hadi. The adults were taken to ...

Early Monteverde community diner., Source: John Campbell by Jody Jenkins How far would you go for your beliefs? It’s a question more pertinent than ever in today’s globalized world brimming with moral issues easily accessible with the swipe of a fingertip on any smartphone. In a virtual age where tapping a “donate” button equates to activism, how do we decide which causes are really worth ri...

Cartoon by Clay Jones By Britt Nelson Editor’s note: The views expressed by guest columnists are not necessarily those of The Costa Rica Star, its advertisers, or its staff. Every four years, the Olympics of American politics gets underway and this year is no exception. The primaries have come and gone as well as both national political conventions. Now there are two contenders; both are...

Source: Wikimedia Commons An expert on aircraft accidents said the Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, which disappeared in March 2014 with 239 people on board, was deliberately crashed into the Indian Ocean, Australian media reported Monday. "Somebody was flying the airplane at the end of its flight ... Somebody was flying the airplane into the water," Larry Vance, who investigated the Swissai...

Scotland Yard, the London Metropolitan Police, believes that a terrorist attack in Britain is a matter of time. The Metropolitan police commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe said, in an article published on the Mail on Sunday, that he could not promise that there will never be an attack, noting that the security forces are working hard to avoid what may occur. Hogan-Howe added that he understo...

Source: Boss Tweed, Flickr Commons The New York Post published nude photographs Sunday of Melania Trump, wife of billionaire developer and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, that were taken in the 1990s. The photos were taken during a 1995 modeling session in Manhattan and were published by defunct French men's magazine Max, the tabloid reported. "This was a picture taken fo...

Airstrikes on a hospital in northern Syria has wounded babies staying in incubators, according to the UK-based Save the Children NGO, which said there is "no excuse for this vile attack", in a tweet. The bombing, which took place on Friday night, targeted the entrance of a maternity hospital in the Syrian province of Idleb, said the non-profit in a recently released statement. The bombing wo...

(CRS Archive) A group of 28 opposition lawmakers who were unseated by Nicaragua's electoral authority said they had been the victims of a "coup." "The mass ouster of opposition lawmakers is an unprecedented move in Nicaraguan history, and with it (President) Daniel Ortega ... is staging a coup on the legislature," the unseated lawmakers said Friday in a statement read by the now-former lead...

A big part of breaking out of your routine and experiencing someplace new is exploring the local cuisine. In the case of Costa Rica, you can’t really go wrong — but here are some extra special items to keep an eye out for.   Source: http://matadornetwork.com...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNqOU4jx62I...

Cartoon by Clay Jones By Britt Nelson Editor’s note: The views expressed by guest columnists are not necessarily those of The Costa Rica Star, its advertisers, or its staff. Now that both the Republicans and the Democrats have held their national conventions, not much has changed. Republican New York billionaire Donald Trump and Democrat former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have acc...

Illustrative image. (Flickr Commons) The probe into last week's coach fire which killed 26 people - including 24 Chinese tourists - took an abrupt turn on Friday when prosecutors announced that the driver was driving under the influence of alcohol and could have drunken alcohol to commit suicide. "Tests of the blood, urine and stomach residue of driver Su Ming-cheng showed that his blood al...

Source: Pixabay Commons Brazilian police on Thursday dismantled a prostitution ring operating near Rio de Janeiro's Olympic Park, where several events of the 2016 Summer Games will take place. The ring used social media to entice low-income teenagers and young women with promises of careers as models, actresses or singers, police said in a statement. "A burning desire to become a model, ...

Source: UNLV By Greg Lacour Mario Verduzco knew only a couple of things as he flew to Costa Rica in January for a four-month study-abroad/internship experience: He’d be working at a recycling center, and the owners had a project for him. The project turned out to be one of the most challenging experiences of the Las Vegas native and electrical engineering junior’s life. It wasn’t so much...

Wikimedia Commons Vinicio Cerezo, who in 1991 became the first Guatemalan head of state in four decades to hand over power to a democratically elected successor, said the Central American nation faces dangerous consequences due to a failure to fully implement the 1996 Peace Accords. "The danger for Guatemala is that our state becomes truly a failed state if we continue on this course," he s...

Source: Policia Civil do Rio de Janeiro Brazilian police seized a small shipment of both powder and crack cocaine packaged in bags bearing the Olympic rings and the logo of the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games, authorities said Tuesday. The drug was in plastic bags marked with the Olympic lettering, the stamp identifying the point of sale and a warning to "keep away from children," according to in...

(CRS Archive) Panama Canal administrator Jorge Quijano said Tuesday that authorities are studying "prohibiting" the use of cell phones while vessels are transiting the waterway to increase safety. "The excessive use of cell phones concerns us because they are becoming elements of distraction and that cannot be permitted here," said Quijano after presenting to the accredited press in Panama ...

Thousands of Cuban migrants remain in shelters across Costa Rica. (CIDH/Twitter) The U.S. government announced Tuesday that it will permit Guatemalans, Hondurans and Salvadorans living legally in this country to request asylum for their children and for people they are "caregivers" for - older siblings, parents, aunts, uncles and grandparents - and it will also cooperate with Costa Rica to all...

Cartoon by Clay JonesBy Britt Nelson Editor’s note: The views expressed by guest columnists are not necessarily those of The Costa Rica Star, its advertisers, or its staff Welcome to the world-famous Democratic Roadkill Café in Philly. This week two new menu items have been added: Bernie’s seasoned three-bean soup with bacon and Schultz’s strip steaks with hot sauce and a dash of disgust. ...

Photo from one of various Twitter accounts attributed to Caro QuinteroMexican drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero, a fugitive from justice since 2013, said in an interview with Proceso magazine that he did not kill U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent Enrique Camarena in 1985 and denied that he was trying to grab control of the Sinaloa drug cartel. Caro Quintero, considered one of Mexico's mo...

Isain Mandujano TwitterHundreds of striking teachers, joined by students and parents, blocked access to the main international airport in the southern state of Chiapas for 10 hours on Monday, Mexican authorities told EFE. With state and federal police deployed at Angel Albino Corzo International Airport, protesters led by the Chiapas branch of the militant CNTE teachers union set up blockades ...

Cartoon by Clay JonesThe president of Fox News, Roger Ailes, resigned Thursday as the network's chief after being accused of sexual harassment by former Fox 5 reporter Gretchen Carlson, the president and executive chairman of 21st Century Fox, Rupert Murdoch, announced Thursday. "Roger Ailes has made a remarkable contribution to our company and our country. Roger shared my vision of a great an...

Photo: JayPLee Flickr CommonsGerman police is investigating the possibility that the Sunday night explosion in the city of Ansbach in Bavaria, southern Germany, which killed the perpetrator of the attack and injured at least ten people, is an Islamic attack. Bavarian Interior Minister, Joachim Herrmann, said at a press conference that the fact the attacker attempted to kill several people near...