San Jose, Feb 9 (EFE).- The government of Costa Rica on Tuesday warned the thousands of Cuban migrants stranded in this country that they must fill the flights established to Mexico and El Salvador so they can be on their way to the United States, or otherwise the transit visas they have been issued will be revoked. That was the message from President Luis Guillermo Solis and Foreign Minister M...

Twitter user and cruise passenger @flatgreg Miami, Feb 8 (EFE).- The cruise ship Anthem of the Seas of the Royal Caribbean company will dock within the coming hours at Florida's Port Canaveral after coming through an unexpectedly dangerous storm in the Atlantic that damaged the vessel and left four people injured. The ship, which had sailed from New Jersey last Saturday on a seven-day cruis...

The New York Times in Spanish New York, Feb 8 (EFE).- The New York Times launched Monday a Spanish-language Web site, a new platform for expanding its presence in the Spanish-speaking market with articles translated from English and others originally written in Spanish. The project comes in addition to a weekly print edition that has been distributed for several years in the Hispanic world....

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton (rear) applauds his wife, Democratic U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, as they appear with their daughter Chelsea (R) at Mrs. Clinton's caucus night rally in Des Moines, Iowa February 1, 2016. REUTERS/Adrees Latif By Britt Nelson Editor's note: The views expressed by guest columnists are not necessarily those of The Costa Rica Star, its advertis...

By Emilio Lopez Romero United Nations, Feb 7 (EFE).- The U.N. Security Council on Sunday condemned the launching of a missile by North Korea and announced that it is working on a new resolution that will include more sanctions and is expected to be approved "as soon as possible." The 15 members of the international body's top decision-making organ condemned "in the most energetic terms" the ...

YouTube screen cap Miami, Feb 6 (EFE).- Fans of the late songstress Selena are asking Mattel to create a Barbie doll inspired by the vocalist of "Amor Prohibido," a petition that up to now has collected more than 4,500 signatures on the Web site Change.org. The petition comes after Mattel announced the launch of three other kinds of Barbie dolls (tall, curvy and short) that are already on s...

Roses now adorn the spot where the Jesuits were gunned down on the UCA's campus on Nov. 16, 1989. They were planted by Obdulio Ramos, husband to Julia Elba Ramos and father to Celina Ramos, who were killed along with the Jesuits. Photo by Charles Barry. Jesuits.org Washington, Feb 5 (EFE).- A U.S. district judge on Friday approved the extradition to Spain of a retired Salvadoran army officer w...

InfoBAE screenshot reporting on the incident Buenos Aires, Feb 7 (EFE).- Former Miss Argentina Rocio Fiorella Santa Cruz has been barred from leaving the country by federal judicial officials in Posadas, the capital of the northeastern Argentine province of Misiones, after she was allegedly involved in a traffic accident that caused the death of a transit inspector who was riding a motorcycle,...

Wikimedia Commons Rio de Janeiro, Feb 5 (EFE).- Mayor Eduardo Paes took the opportunity of Friday's ceremony marking the state of Rio's famous Carnival to urge residents of Brazil's second city not to forget the fight against the mosquito that transmits the Zika virus and dengue fever. "Don't forget the mosquito, which now brings us a new disease, Zika," he said. The spread of Zika and i...

File photo San Jose, Feb 5 (EFE).- The Costa Rican government announced Friday that next week direct flights to Mexico will begin for Cuban migrants who have been stranded in the Central American country since last November on their way to the United States. "We are pleased to announce that the governments of Costa Rica and Mexico have agreed to carry out direct flights to make travel easie...

Natazha: "I have been active my whole life. As a kid I loved sports and played almost all of them. Skateboarding is something I have been doing since I was a kid. It was the easiest way to get around! I love standup paddle boarding in Costa Rica. I have been in the modeling industry for fifteen years. My husband’s a photographer & owns a learning vacation school in Jaco Costa Rica". Source:...

https://vimeo.com/140752599...

As a celebration dedicated to awakening our human potential, Envision provides a platform for different cultures to co-exist in sustainable community, and inspire one another through art, spirituality, yoga, music, dance, performance, education, sustainability and our fundamental connection with nature. Learn More at: envisionfestival.com...

Source: Wikimedia Commons SAN JOSÉ, Costa Rica--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Mobile operators today announced a series of new initiatives as part of the WeCare Costa Rica campaign run by the GSMA to provide a safer and more reliable environment for all mobile users. Operators Claro, ICE and Telefónica will work together to fight mobile phone theft as well as facilitate greater accessibility for consumers ...

Washington, Feb 4 (EFE).- U.S. President Barack Obama on Thursday announced the "Peace Colombia" plan, a new bilateral accord between Washington and Bogota for which he will ask Congress for some $450 million in the fiscal 2017 budget, substantially more than the $296 million authorized for that country this year. The president announced the proposal during the White House ceremony to commemora...

Source: Maxam By Maria M. Mur Panama City, Feb 4 (EFE).- The 3,500 blasts that Spain-based multinational Maxam has detonated as part of the Panama Canal's expansion have been one of the biggest technological challenges for the firm, a leader in staged explosions in mining and public works projects. "It has been a very important technological challenge for us," Maxam international relatio...

Microcephaly is a birth defect which causes babies to be born with unusually small heads and brains. (Photo by Ueslei Marcelino/Reuters) By Carol Pearson (VOA) The Zika virus rarely causes problems for the people who get it. Eighty percent don't show any symptoms, others might have a rash or a slight fever. The disease seems insignificant, but it also seems to be having a devastating eff...

Wikimedia Commons Mexico City, Feb 3 (EFE).- A young gray whale (Eschrictius robustus) that beached itself in the northwestern Mexican state of Baja California Sur was rescued by Profepa federal environmental protection agency personnel, officials said. The whale was found at El Mariscal, a fishing camp on the Laguna Ojo de Liebre in Guerrero Negro, a community outside the city of Mulege, t...

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton (rear) applauds his wife, Democratic U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, as they appear with their daughter Chelsea (R) at Mrs. Clinton's caucus night rally in Des Moines, Iowa February 1, 2016. REUTERS/Adrees Latif By Britt Nelson New Hampshire voters will again have the world on their shoulders for the Feb. 9 primary election. Every four years -...

As the race to the White House heats up, The Costa Rica Star is welcoming a seasoned political reporter to its staff to keep US expats in the know about this important election year, with a focus on how US elections affect Americans living abroad. Britt Nelson relocated to Costa Rica in 2011 from Florida, where he served as news editor for the Palatka Daily News, a newspaper owned by the New Yo...

Source: Kate del Castillo Twitter San Juan, Feb 2 (EFE).- Puerto Rican singer Elvis Crespo will debut a song this week inspired by the relationship between Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman and actress Kate del Castillo. As the singer's rep Mayna Nevarez told EFE, the single entitled "Escapate" (Escape) was recorded with the collaboration of Crespo's former bandmates in Grupo Mani...

Source: Wikimedia Commons Los Angeles, Feb 3 (EFE; odds by IDSca.com).- The Los Angeles Lakers got 38 points from Kobe Bryant in a 119-115 victory here over the Minnesota Timberwolves, avoiding what would have been a franchise-record 11th straight loss. The 37-year-old Bryant made 10 of his 21 shots from the field, including going 7-of-11 from distance, grabbed five rebounds and dished out ...

"Rolling Stones 26" by Gorupdebesanez - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Commons Lima, Feb 2 (EFE).- The Rolling Stones sent a message to their Peruvian fans saying they "can't wait to play in Lima" on their Latin America Ole Tour. The rock group wound up rehearsals for the tour Monday in Santiago, and will give their first concert Wednesday in the Chilean capital, after which they...

Wikimedia Commons Mexico City, Feb 2 (EFE).- Three Colombians were arrested when they tried to fly out of the Mexico City airport with more than $1.5 million in cash hidden in their luggage, the Attorney General's Office said. "The three passengers tried to leave the country without declaring the foreign exchange they were carrying in their double-bottomed suitcases, registered to Copa Airl...

Denver, Feb 1 (EFE).- The legalization and sale of marijuana in Colorado since 2014 has reduced the operations of Mexican drug cartels both along the southern U.S. border as well as inside this country, according to a report released Monday by a group specializing in legal matters. The report, published by Lawyer Herald, uses recent statistics from several sources to conclude that the legal pro...

Demi Lovato Instagram Miami, Feb 1 (EFE).- Actor Wilmer Valderrama on the weekend celebrated his 36th birthday in an original and "savage" way thanks to his girlfriend, singer and actress Demi Lovato, who took him to spend the entire day with a pack of wolves. The star of the television series "From Dusk Till Dawn" looked happy with the wolves in photos Lovato shared on her Instagram accoun...

Wikimedia Commons Geneva, Feb 1 (EFE).- The World Health Organization said Monday that the dramatic increase in Brazil of birth defects thought to be caused by the mosquito-borne Zika virus constitutes an international public health emergency. The sharp rise in babies born with abnormally small skulls - a condition known as microcephaly - in areas suffering from a Zika outbreak "constitute ...

ISIS fighters in Iraq. Source: Wikimedia Commons Cairo, Jan 31 (EFE).- At least 58 people died Sunday in at least two bomb blasts in the mainly Shiite Damascus neighborhood of Sayida Zeinab, the Syrian Human Rights Observatory reported. According to the NGO, the victims included 25 Syrian and foreign Shiite militia members loyal to the regime of President Bashar al Assad. The Observatory...

Rahmat Alizadah Twitter Kabul, Jan 31 (EFE).- Murtaza Ahmadi, the 5-year-old Afghan boy whose photo wearing a homemade Lionel Messi jersey went viral on social media, will get to meet his idol, Afghan soccer officials said Sunday. "The management of the Afghan Football Federation (AFF) has received e-mails from Lionel Messi and FC Barcelona regarding the meeting," the federation's spokesman...

By Vitaly V. Kuzmin - http://vitalykuzmin.net/?q=node/464, CC BY-SA 3.0, Istanbul, Jan 30 (EFE).- The Turkish government summoned the Russian ambassador to protest the latest violation of its airspace by a Russian fighter jet, Turkey's Foreign Ministry said Saturday. The incident took place Friday at 0946 GMT and involved an Su-34 fighter jet of the Russian air force, according to an offici...

Wikimedia Commons By Begoña Marin Miami, Jan 26 (EFE).- Spanish tenor Placido Domingo said that at 75, he feels he still has the strength to keep bringing the lyric opera genre to the world's stages. "In the last six years I've gone through some difficult health problems, but fortunately everything came out fine and I still feel strong enough to stay onstage," Domingo, who is giving a co...

Free Syrian Army forces fighting in urban terrain. Source: Flickr CC. Cairo, Jan 29 (EFE).- The Higher Negotiating Committee of the Syrian opposition decided Friday to take part in the peace talks that began in Geneva between the United Nations and the Syrian regime, after obtaining guarantees that its demands would be met. According to a communique, the HNC won international guarantees tha...

Serena Williams. Source: Wikimedia Commons International Sports Desk, Jan 30 (EFE).- Germany's Angelique Kerber defied the odds to stun Serena Williams in Saturday night's Australian Open final, using superior consistency and strong defense to defeat the world's top-ranked player 6-4, 3-6, 6-3. The seventh-seeded Kerber, who saved a match point in her opening contest in Melbourne, a first-r...

Wikimedia Commons London, Jan 27 (EFE).- A team of U.S. researchers has developed a method for screening thousands of chemicals for toxicity without testing them on animals, an article in the scientific journal Nature Communications said. A team led by Ruili Huang, of the National Institutes of Health's National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, or NCATS, conducted the Tox21 stud...

Flickr Commons Mexico City, Jan 28 (EFE).- Mexican authorities sent the U.S. teenager who used an "affluenza" court defense after killing four people while driving drunk in Texas back to the United States to face court proceedings. "Ethan Couch, who entered at the Las Agujas immigration station ... after being found to be in an irregular administrative situation, was transferred this mornin...

Wikimedia Commons By Beatriz Pascual Macias Washington, Jan 28 (EFE).- Two senators on Thursday revealed serious abuses suffered by some undocumented migrant children, most from Central America and whom the U.S. government had placed in the custody of criminals who exploited them both sexually and at work. They include "vulnerable and traumatized minors abused by their sponsors, or force...

Source: Flickr Commons Rio de Janeiro, Jan 25 (EFE).- The mayor of the Brazilian town of Goianesia do Para, Joao Gomes, was murdered Sunday night while he was attending a wake, local media reported. He was 62. Gomes, popularly known as "Russo," was attending a wake downtown in the municipality in the northern Brazilian state of Para, when two people wearing helmets that covered their faces,...

East Africa Drought of 2011. Wikimedia Commons By Maria M. Mur Los Santos, Panama, Jan 28 (EFE).- A stretch of the Mensabe River near the village of Peñablanca was a popular swimming spot for Panamanian families just one year ago, but a devastating drought has changed the situation dramatically and transformed that waterway into a rocky path to nowhere. Like the Guarare and the Perales, ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnOhLCijR3U...

By Alba Santandreu Piracicaba, Brazil, Jan 27 (EFE).- Roughly 800,000 genetically modified Aedes aegypti mosquitoes are being released per week in the Brazilian city of Piracicaba to combat that insect, a transmitter of the dengue and zika viruses that has confounded health authorities in Brazil and other Latin American countries. Unlike other mosquitoes, the "good" Aedes aegypti, as it is c...