Source: Wikimedia Commons Cancun, Mexico, Apr 13 (EFE).- A 31-year-old man from Tlaxcala, a state in central Mexico, died over the weekend when a crocodile pulled him under in the Bojorquez Lagoon near the hotel in the Caribbean resort of Cancun, police said. Marco Antonio Sanchez Fernandez was drunk when he went for a swim on Saturday, encountering the crocodile. Sanchez Fernandez and a...

By Alfonso Fernandez. Washington, Apr 15 (EFE).- The World Bank said Wednesday that the economic slowdown in Latin America could become "permanent" if structural reforms are not made to adapt the growth model to an international scenario in which China will also slow down economically and the prices of raw materials will remain at low levels. "In the absence of growth-friendly structural ref...

Wikimedia Commons Bogota, Apr 13 (EFE).- Puerto Rican singer Marc Anthony inaugurated the Victor Tamayo Orphanage in the Caribbean city of Barranquilla in northern Colombia, which will initially benefit 100 poor children, city officials said. "You have no idea how moved I am to share this moment with you. This dream began years ago at an orphanage in the Dominican Republic - that day I comm...

Washington, Apr 14 (EFE).- U.S. President Barack Obama on Tuesday informed Congress of his intention to remove Cuba from the list of countries sponsoring terrorism, where that nation has been since 1982 and which comes with the imposition of sanctions. White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest announced the move in a communique. Cuba has been demanding for years that it be removed from the list...

ISS. Source: Wikimedia Commons Washington, Apr 14 (EFE).- Privately-owned SpaceX on Tuesday successfully launched a Dragon cargo capsule carrying material for the International Space Station, although it failed to get the Falcon 9 rocket's first stage to land softly enough to allow it to be reused. The Falcon 9 rocket - 42 meters (138 feet) long - placed the unmanned Dragon capsule into orb...

Blackwater helicopter over Iraq. Wikimedia Commons Washington, Apr 13 (EFE).- Four former U.S. Blackwater security guards were sentenced by a federal judge to long prison terms for the 2007 massacre of 14 unarmed Iraqi civilians in Baghdad.   U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth sentenced Nicholas Slatten to life in prison after his murder conviction in the killings at a Baghdad...

By Fernando Mexia. Source: Wikimedia Commons Los Angeles, Apr 13 (EFE).- Arnold Schwarzenegger is returning to his role as the Terminator with the screenplay for the fifth installment in the film series including the cyborg character he first played in 1984, a semi-human robot that can regenerate itself but which is subject to the physical deterioration that accompanies aging. The actor ...

Washington, Apr 12 (EFE).- U.S. media outlets on Sunday discussed the "historic" meeting between U.S. President Barack Obama and his Cuban counterpart, Raul Castro, saying it was a key milestone in a new era of relations between the two countries. The daily Washington Post, which led in its online edition with the Saturday meeting of the two leaders at the 7th Summit of the Americas in Panama, ...

Source: Wikimedia Commons Bogota, Apr 12 (EFE).- Retired Argentine soccer player Diego Maradona is the star of a video going viral on social networks that shows him taking a swipe at a man who tried to photograph him after the "Match for Peace" played earlier this weekend in Colombia's capital. The 54-year-old Maradona tried to make his way around Bogota's Techo stadium following Friday nig...

Jill Ruttenberg of AmaTierra Retreat in Costa Rica This article was kindly provided by Jill Ruttenberg of AmaTierra Retreat and Wellness Center in Costa Rica.   Yes, there are Greens that should NOT be eaten raw! Recent trends in nutrition promote eating mostly raw foods. As a nutritionist I feel it’s necessary to qualify a few things about this popular new eating practice. First ...

Wikimedia Commons Mexico City, Apr 12 (EFE).- Mining companies negotiate with the drug cartels operating in their areas, making arrangements for exploration projects, Mexican Association of Mining, Metallurgical and Geological Engineers, or AIMMGM, president Manuel Reyes said.   "We ask the mafia for permission, the organized crime groups, and we are able to (operate). Things get re...

Wikimedia Commons By Marc Arcas   Washington, Apr 11 (EFE).- NASA scientists are now convinced that extraterrestrial life is a fact, not a mere possibility, and says man will find conclusive signs of life far from Earth by the year 2045.   For scientists, the big question about alien life is no longer if it will be found but when.   "I think we're going to have...

Game of Thrones title card. Flickr Commons By Fernando Mexia Los Angeles, Apr 10 (EFE).- Unremitting power struggles, an insatiable thirst for revenge and the cold of darkest winter return to the medieval Seven Kingdoms in "Game of Thrones," a hit TV series debuting its fifth season this weekend on screens worldwide. The drama inspired by the literary saga "A Song of Ice and Fire" by Geo...

ISIS fighters in Iraq. Source: Wikimedia Commons Washington, Apr 10 (EFE).- An American who was allegedly plotting a suicide car-bomb attack at a Kansas military base in support of the Islamic State jihadist group was arrested Friday while preparing the explosive. John T. Booker, Jr., a 20-year-old from Topeka, Kansas, has been charged with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction, at...

Panama City, Apr 10 (EFE).- U.S. President Barack Obama and Panamanian counterpart Juan Carlos Varela were on hand for a ceremony here Friday in which Panama's Copa Airlines and Chicago-based plane maker Boeing finalized an order for 61 jets. The $6.6 billion deal for 61 Boeing 737 MAX 8 and MAX 9 airplanes was signed ahead of the inauguration of the April 10-11 Summit of the Americas in this c...

EFE file photo Washington, Apr 9 (EFE).- U.S. President Barack Obama said prior to a regional summit that he remained committed to promoting security and prosperity in Central America and to pushing through an overhaul of the U.S. immigration system.   "Throughout my trip this week (to Jamaica and the April 10-11 Summit of the Americas in Panama City), I'll continue to make the case...

Wikimedia Commons Culiacan, Mexico, Apr 8 (EFE).- Canada's McEwen Mining said Wednesday that some 7,000 ounces of gold worth $8.5 million were stolen in an armed robbery at its El Gallo 1 mine in the northwestern Mexican state of Sinaloa.   No one was hurt in the robbery and the mine in the city of Mocorito was not damaged, the company said in a statement.   Mining and pr...

Artist rendition of a protoplanetary system. Wikimedia Commons Berlin, Apr 9 (EFE).- A team of scientists has found, for the first time, complex organic molecules, the building blocks of life, in a protoplanetary disc surrounding a young star, reinforcing the theory of life beyond the Solar System. In an article published Thursday in the journal Nature, the team said it detected "large amou...

File photo of retired Cuban leader Fidel Castro. EFE/File Washington, Apr 8 (EFE).- Almost 80 percent of Cubans have a favorable impression of U.S. President Barack Obama, compared with 47 percent who think well of Cuban President Raul Castro and 44 percent who think well of revolutionary leader and former President Fidel Castro, according to the largest opinion survey ever performed in Cuba b...

Wikimedia Commons Chicago, Apr 7 (EFE).- U.S. company Burger King will pay the wedding expenses for a young Illinois couple named Joel Burger and Ashley King, whose children will carry forward in their last names the "lineage" of the multinational fast-food chain, local media said. Burger, 24, and King, 23, accepted the offer of the Miami-based fast-food chain to sponsor their wedding next ...

Wikimedia Commons Caracas, Apr 7 (EFE).- Some 13,000 doctors have emigrated from Venezuela in recent years, the president of the Venezuelan Medical Federation, Douglas Leon Natera, said Tuesday, while warning that "the crisis" in the sector has a "tendency to gradually get worse."   "Around 13,000 doctors have gone" from the nation's 300 private and state hospitals, specifically "7,...

EFE file photo New York, Apr 6 (EFE).- The preliminary agreement negotiated among six big international powers and Iran is the "best option" for ensuring that Tehran does not develop a nuclear bomb, U.S. President Barack Obama said in an interview published Monday in The New York Times. The framework agreement, the details of which must be worked out before July 1, is "the best option for u...

Screenshot from Google Maps San Juan, Apr 6 (EFE).- Cayo Ratones, a 10-hectare (24-acre) island off southern Puerto Rico that has just one solar-powered wooden house with a swimming pool, has been put on the market for $2.5 million. Puerto Rico Sotheby's International Realty is handling the sale and its president, Margaret Peña Juvelier, told Efe that "people from several parts of the world...

File photo New York, Apr 6 (EFE).- A bust of Edward Snowden was secretly placed at a monument to the Revolutionary War fallen in New York by a group of artists who wanted to pay tribute to the former National Security Agency analyst.   The "museum-quality" sculpture, placed on top of a column some eight feet high, was covered with a tarpaulin shortly after being found by municipal e...

New York, Apr 6 (EFE).- Actor Leonardo DiCaprio plans to build an eco-friendly resort on an uninhabited island off Belize, a project aimed at combining environmentalism and hospitality.   "The main focus is to do something that will change the world," DiCaprio told The New York Times, adding that he wanted to create a resort that "could be groundbreaking in the environmental movement." ...

Pele (left) once played for the NY Cosmos. Wikimedia Commons Sao Paulo, Apr 5 (EFE).- Iconic soccer star Pele asked that his son Joshua, who plays for the Santos Sub-20 team, and his grandson Octavio Felinto, who at age 16 has just turned pro for Guarani de Divinopolis, not be compared with him, the Sao Paulo press reported Sunday. "I'm proud of them all and for my son Joshua and my grandso...

A Germanwings A-319. Wikimedia Commons Berlin, Apr 5 (EFE).- Lufthansa airline did not inform German air traffic authorities about the psychiatric problems being experienced by Andreas Lübitz, the co-pilot who deliberately crashed a Germanwings Airbus jet in the French Alps, killing all 150 on board. The Sunday edition of the daily Die Welt based its reporting on air traffic officials' rema...

"Mad Men season 5 cast photo" by Source (WP:NFCC#4). Licensed under Fair Use via Wikimedia Commons Los Angeles, Apr 4 (EFE).- The winding down of the critically acclaimed "Mad Men" saga, hailed by Rolling Stone magazine as the best drama series of all time, marks an end of an era for the AMC cable network and U.S. television and will be must-see viewing over the next several weeks for millions...

ISIS fighters in Iraq. Source: Wikimedia Commons Mosul, Iraq, Apr 4 (EFE).- Jihadists of the radical Islamic State posted a video Saturday showing how they recently destroyed ancient statues in the northern Iraqi city of Hatra, declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1985. The destruction was confirmed to Efe by an official of the Tourism Ministry in the northern province of Nineveh. ...

Serena Williams. Source: Wikimedia Commons Miami, Apr 4 (EFE).- American top seed Serena Williams was in devastating form here Saturday afternoon in the final of the Miami Open, trouncing Spain's Carla Suarez Navarro 6-2, 6-0 in less than an hour to claim her eighth title at this elite hard-court event. Williams hit 26 more winners than her opponent (29-3) and won 95 percent of her first-se...

File photo of retired Cuban leader Fidel Castro. EFE/File Havana, Apr 4 (EFE).- Former Cuban President Fidel Castro visited a school in Havana last Monday where he happened to meet up with members of a Venezuelan "Solidarity with Cuba" delegation, in what was his first public appearance in more than a year, official media reported Saturday News about Castro's visit to Vilma Espin School, an...

ENOB - Basquiat, 1985. Flickr Commons By Mateo Sancho Cardiel New York, Apr 3 (EFE).- He was among the most influential yet one of the shortest-lived artists of the second half of the 20th century, but the complicated mind of Jean-Michel Basquiat, which raised him to fame and plunged him into self-destruction, has a roadmap in the eight hand-written notebooks being exhibited starting Friday...

An execution chamber in the US Austin, Texas, Apr 3 (EFE).- Anthony Ray Hinton, a man condemned to death in 1985 for killing two people in Alabama, was freed Friday after spending 30 years in jail for a crime that a new trial found he did not commit. Friends and family greeted the African American Hinton, now age 59, as he walked out of the Jefferson County jail in Birmingham, Alabama. H...

Washington, Apr 2 (EFE).- Airbnb, the online lodgings marketplace, announced Thursday it is extending its operation to Cuba, becoming one of the first companies offering home-rentals to U.S. citizens authorized to travel to the island. Following last December's announcement of a thaw in U.S.-Cuba relations, President Barack Obama signed an executive order lifting some of the restrictions on tra...

Washington, Apr 2 (EFE).- The Indiana House of Representatives announced Thursday that it will make changes to the state's controversial law on religious freedom, which has engendered much criticism for allowing discrimination against homosexuals. The head of the lower house, Republican Brian Bosma, said Thursday he wanted to make it "very clear" that the law permits no leeway to "allow discrim...

Kenyan forces responded to the attack. Source: Wikimedia Commons Nairobi, Apr 2 (EFE) .- At least 147 people were killed and 79 others were wounded on Thursday in an attack launched by Somali jihadist group Al-Shabab on Garissa University, near the Somali border in northeastern Kenya, the Kenyan government said. The National Disaster Operation Center said that, after 16 hours of clashes, th...

Serena Williams. Source: Wikimedia Commons Miami, Apr 2 (EFE).- Britain's Andy Murray and American Serena Williams advanced to the semifinals of the Miami Open with three-set victories over Dominic Thiem and Sabine Lisicki, respectively. Murray got off to a slow start in his Wednesday afternoon match and paid the price against the 21-year-old Thiem, one of the biggest surprises of this elit...

Senator Menendez, second from right. Wikimedia Commons Washington, Apr 1 (EFE).- Sen. Robert Menendez on Wednesday called the corruption charges announced against him completely mistaken, attributing them to "political motivations." The New Jersey lawmaker said he was "angry and ready to fight" the charges in a statement he read in English and Spanish when he appeared before reporters in Ne...

By Sara Gomez Armas. Havana, Apr 2 (EFE).- Cuba recently opened its first free public Wi-Fi hotspot, a "gift" to his people from artist Alexis Leyva that offers many young people the chance to surf the Web for the first time in their lives. At a time when babies in other parts of the world are seemingly born with a smartphone or tablet under their arm, Pedro, a 17-year-old student, checked o...

A Germanwings A-319. Wikimedia Commons Berlin, Mar 31 (EFE).- Co-pilot Andreas Lübitz, thought to have deliberately crashed an airliner in the French Alps last week, in 2009 reported to the Lufthansa flight school the fact that he had overcome a "serious depressive episode," the German airline said Tuesday. Lufthansa revealed the new information in a communique on Tuesday after conducting a...