Scarlet Macaw BALTIMORE, MD (PRWEB) MAY 23, 2016 - When people consider retiring abroad, they most often cite as motivation the lower cost of living, escaping the worst of the North American winter, finding a more adventurous life, access to excellent, affordable healthcare. But many expats report that, once abroad, they discover a benefit they hadn’t considered in advance: a healthier lifestyl...

Source: Correos de Costa Rica Vatican City, May 27 (EFE).- Pope Francis met in a private audience here Friday with Costa Rican President Luis Guillermo Solis, who invited the pontiff to visit the Central American country. "If it's possible," the pope responded. Solis arrived almost 20 minutes late for the audience, a delay officials said was due to a misunderstanding between the Vatican ...

(Archive image for illustrative purposes. Wikimedia Commons) 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. Washington, May 26 (EFE; additional reporting and opinion by The Costa Rica Star). Real-estate mogul Donald Trump has exceeded the minimum number of delegates needed to secure t...

Illustrative image. (Flickr Commons) By Marti Quintana. Teotihuacan, Mexico, May 26 (EFE).- Lack of trust in the authorities, a perception of abandonment and a fired-up sense of community led hundreds of residents of a central Mexican town to lynch two suspected kidnappers. All was apparently quiet on Wednesday in the central square of Atlatongo, a town of 5,000 in the central state of M...

Wikimedia Commons Cleveland, May 26 (EFE; odds by IDSca.com).- The Cleveland Cavaliers pummeled the Toronto Raptors 116-78 to take a three-games-to-two lead in the Eastern Conference Finals and move within one win of trip back to the championship round. After losing the two previous games at Toronto's Air Canada Centre, which will be the venue for Friday's Game 6, the Cavaliers dominated fr...

Flickr Commons Rome, May 26 (EFE). - Costa Rican President Luis Guillermo Solis on Thursday called on Italian investors to strengthen bilateral trade ties and touted the Central American country's services and medical technology sectors as areas with great potential. Solis met in Rome with Italian business leaders and later gave a press conference in which he stressed that "trade relations ...

Source: DOD DVIDS By 2nd Lt. Anna Doo, 200th Public Affairs Detachment, NMARNG QUEPOS, COSTA RICA - Twenty-two Costa Rican Guarda Costas attended a two-day workshop conducted by Sgt. 1st. Class David Muniz and Sgt. Michael Marfia, medics from New Mexico National Guard, as part of the National Guard Bureau's State Partnership Program. The Subject Matter Expert Exchange, or SMEE, aims to deep...

An anti-GMO activist in San Francisco. Source: Wikimedia Commons Asuncion, May 24 (EFE).- About 100 farmers with peasant organizations on Tuesday left their family farms in Paraguay's interior to attend a fair in downtown Asuncion, where they displayed their native seeds, the basis for their resistance against the advance of genetically modified crops, or GMOs. The seeds of Paraguayan stapl...

"Stephen Curry 2" by Keith Allison from Owings Mills, USA - Stephen Curry. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons Oklahoma City, May 25 (EFE).- The Oklahoma City Thunder continued to dominate their matchup against the Golden State Warriors, winning Game 4 118-94 to take a 3-1 lead in the Western Conference Finals and put the defending champions on the verge of elimination. Supers...

Joaquin "Chapo" Guzman. Source: Wikimedia Commons Mexico City, May 23 (EFE).- Drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" (Shorty) Guzman will not appeal any ruling opening the way for his extradition to the United States, a move approved by the Mexican Foreign Relations Secretariat last week, if he reaches an agreement with U.S. authorities, defense attorney Jose Refugio Rodriguez told EFE. "Joaquin is n...

Monument at Punta Querandí, Wikimedia Commons Buenos Aires, May 22 (EFE).- A small patch of land is the epicenter of a conflict to defend the rights of Argentina's original inhabitants against construction firms. Punta Querandi, a little "peninsula" in a river in the Buenos Aires provincial town of Dique Lujan, was isolated by the collapse of its only bridge and by the private neighborhoods...

Wikimedia Commons3 El Castillo, Nicaragua, May 22 (EFE).- A 341-year-old fortress in southern Nicaragua that was formerly a bastion against English pirates is nowadays a growing tourist attraction. The town of El Castillo, in southern Rio San Juan province, owes its name to the local fortress - "El Castillo de la Inmaculada Concepcion," built by the Spanish in 1673-1675 and nowadays one of ...

Photo by Jack Donnelly By Jack Donnelly Malacrianza killed two people and is much loved for it. Malacrianza (bad upbringing, badly raised) is Costa Rica’s most famous bull. He killed two of his riders—a huge career boost—during his time on the circuit. He performed for the last time in 2013 and was found dead in his pasture in March of 2015. He came from Hacienda La Nueva Esperanza in...

Wikimedia Commons Barranquilla, Colombia, May 21 (EFE).- Colombian songstress Shakira said Saturday in her native city of Barranquilla that she has no plans to marry Barcelona soccer star Gerard Pique and dismissed recent rumors that she is expecting her third child. "For now there is no plan for a wedding, nor am I pregnant," the artist told a press conference that brought to an end her fo...

David, Panama, May 21 (EFE).- Panamanian authorities have stopped selling tickets for Mexico-bound flights to transfer nearly 4,000 Cubans stranded in the Central American country since last December, an immigration official told EFE. Dozens of Cubans trying to make their way to the United States have been waiting in line in this western city, capital of Chiriqui province, to purchase the $575 ...

Police officers stand guard next to a company list showing the Mossack Fonseca law firm outside their office in Panama City April 12, 2016. REUTERS/Carlos Jasso Montevideo, May 20 (EFE).- The Panama Papers are "the tip of the iceberg" with respect to offshore companies, according to Panamanian financial expert Julio Aguirre, who said Friday that the massive leak of Mossack Fonseca's documents ...

Joaquin "Chapo" Guzman. Source: Wikimedia Commons Mexico City, May 20 (EFE).- Mexico's Foreign Relations Secretariat said Friday it had approved the extradition of notorious drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" (Shorty) Guzman to the United States so he can be tried by federal courts in California and Texas for a range of crimes. In a statement, the secretariat said it conveyed its decision to the ...

Wikimedia Commons Los Angeles, May 19 (EFE).- Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe will star as detectives of dubious morals in "The Nice Guys," a film that confirms the former's comic touch and allows the latter to return to a genre where he has not done much yet in his career. Gosling, 35, said in a recent interview with reporters in Los Angeles before the U.S. screening of the film on Friday t...

An EgyptAir Airbus. Wikimedia Commons Cairo, May 19 (EFE).- An EgyptAir passenger jet that left Paris bound for Cairo with 66 people on board crashed into the Mediterranean Sea early Thursday for unknown reasons, although authorities are not ruling out a terrorist attack and say that hypothesis is more likely than technical failure. The Airbus A320 disappeared from radar screens at 2:45 a.m...

(Courtesy) NEW YORK/FRANKFURT (Reuters) German drugs and chemicals group Bayer has made an unsolicited takeover proposal to U.S. seeds company Monsanto, aiming to create the world's biggest agricultural supplier and take advantage of converging pesticides and seeds markets. Monsanto disclosed the approach on Wednesday before Bayer confirmed its move, though neither released proposed terms. ...

An emission nebula similar to N55. Wikimedia Commons Berlin, May 18 (EFE).- The European Southern Observatory on Wednesday released an impressive image of "stellar ornamentation," a peculiar pink and blue optical effect detected in a nebula in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a galaxy some 163,000 light years from Earth. The ESO said in a communique that the detailed photo of the LHA 120-N55 neb...

Wikimedia Commons Washington, May 18 (EFE).- Central American parents and children who are in the United States after fleeing the violence in their home countries went to Congress Wednesday to ask for "laws that protect them" and the legal protection needed to be able to apply for asylum here. Half a dozen children, some of them accompanied by their parents, traveled from Chicago to Washing...

Source: US SOUTHCOM Lima, May 13 (EFE; additional reporting by The Costa Rica Star).- Colombia has won a competition involving 20 special operations teams from across the Americas, with Honduras and Peru coming in second and third place, respectively, military officials said. Despite a Constitutional abolishment of her military that dates back to 1949, Costa Rica has been sending tactical p...

imgflip.com 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. Kentucky handed former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton a very weak victory Tuesday night over Democratic rival Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, described by a CNN news anchor as “tighter than a Speedo on Chris Christie.” San...

Illustrative image. (Flickr Commons) San Salvador, May 10 (EFE; additional reporting by The Costa Rica Star).- El Salvador's murder rate so far in 2016 exceeds 38 per 100,000 inhabitants, well above the rate in several neighboring Central American countries, such  as Costa Rica, for all of 2015, according to official figures released on Tuesday. According to information provided by police d...

Wikimedia Commons Cleveland, May 18 (EFE).- Star point guard Kyrie Irving and do-it-all forward LeBron James combined for 51 points to lead the red-hot Cleveland Cavaliers to a 115-84 shellacking of the Toronto Raptors in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals. Irving scored 27 points, while James contributed 24 points, grabbed six rebounds and handed out four assists in Tuesday night's co...

Wikimedia Commons Caracas, May 17 (EFE).- A U.S. military aircraft "with lethal technical abilities" illegally entered Venezuelan airspace twice over the past week, President Nicolas Maduro said Tuesday. "Our military aviation detected the illegal entry, for unusual espionage tasks, of the Boeing 707 E-3 Sentry, which is an airborne early warning control center system that has all the mecha...

Wikimedia Commons Los Angeles, May 16 (EFE).- Irish singer Sinead O'Connor, who seemed to have gone missing, has been found safe and sound, the online edition of The Hollywood Reporter said Monday. Police in the Chicago suburb of Wilmette told the online magazine that the artist has been located and that she was unharmed. Still unknown is exactly where she was found. A scant few hours...

Wikimedia Commons Washington, May 16 (EFE).- The U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced Monday that it is extending for another 18 months the Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, for Honduras and Nicaragua, a measure that also allows the extension of work permits. Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson announced in a statement that the limit on this immigration benefit for Nicaragua...

Massachusetts General Hospital. Wikimedia Commons Washington, May 16 (EFE).- Surgeons at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston announced Monday the first successful penis transplant in the United States, performed on a patient who lost that organ because of a tumor. The operation was just the second of its kind in the world, following a similar one in South Africa in 2014. On this occ...

By Matt Kendall Now in its sixth year, Nearshore Americas’ seminal conference Nexus attracted 150 attendees and close to 20 sponsors to the Le Meridien hotel in San Francisco, the first time this tech-centric city has played host to the event. Kicking things off to a flying start was a fascinating and insightful keynote speaker, Laura Chinchilla, former President of Costa Rica, who presented...

Guatemala special forces soldiers on patrol. Wikimedia Commons Guatemala City, May 15 (EFE).- The Guatemalan government on the weekend denounced what it said was a new incident of the "excessive use of force by the Belizean army" after the detention of three Guatemalans for illegal gold mining in an operation that resulted in one of the men being wounded. In a brief communique released by t...

  "All homeowners are investors at heart" is an expression often heard in certain real estate circles, and in Costa Rica this is something that extends to the process of legal immigration. In general, foreigners and their immediate family (spouse, parents and children) can apply for residency if the applicant has investments worth USD $200,000 in Costa Rica. The types of investment shou...

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. A new reality is spreading across the United States of America in places of traditional privacy – public bathrooms in shopping centers, airports, swimming pools and schools. Through President Obama’s U.S. Department of Education, p...

(Reuters OMX) Caracas, May 14 (EFE).- Crowds of Venezuelan opposition members gathered Saturday in Caracas to demand that electoral authorities act quickly to hold a recall referendum that might succeed in removing from office the president of Venezuela, the Chavista Nicolas Maduro. The demonstration that began around 10:00 a.m. downtown in the Venezuelan capital was called two days ago by ...

Michael Temer with Dilma Rousseff Brasilia, May 12 (EFE).- Brazilian acting President Michel Temer on Thursday chose leading figures from nine centrist and conservative parties for his Cabinet, which for the first time in decades has no female ministers. Temer, who had been vice president, replaced Dilma Rousseff of the center-left Workers Party, or PT, Brazil's first woman head of state, w...

Van Gogh - Starry Night. Google Cultural Institute Medellin, Colombia, May 13 (EFE).- The inauguration in this northwestern Colombian city of the multisensory exhibition "Van Gogh Alive: The Experience" will serve to immerse art lovers in the Dutch post-Impressionist painter's visionary "madness." Installed at the Plaza Mayor until June 28, when it will be taken to Bogota, the exhibition co...

FARC guerrilla unit marching in 1998. Wikimedia Commons Geneva, May 13 (EFE).- The UN Refugee Agency, or ACNUR, reported Friday that more than 6,000 people have fled their homes and another 7,000 are trapped by armed clashes in the Colombian region of Choco, one of the most violent in the country. The battles, according to UNHCR, are between illegal armed groups seeking control of this terr...

2016 Rio Olympics Logo Washington, May 12 (EFE).- The World Health Organization and the Pan American Health Organization on Thursday asked pregnant women not to travel to Rio de Janeiro or to other parts of Brazil where the Zika virus is present as part of their recommendations for the Olympic Games in August. In a joint communique, the two affiliated organizations acknowledged that athlete...

Presidential Standard of Brazil. Wikimedia Commons Brasilia, May 12 (EFE).- Vice President Michel Temer will become Brazil's acting president on Thursday after the Senate voted to remove Dilma Rousseff from office for up to six months while she is tried in that chamber for allegedly violating budget laws. The vote to impeach and suspend Rousseff came after a marathon session in the upper ho...