Author: americalatinanews.com

Bolsonaro undergoes new surgical procedure

Carlos Bolsonaro posted about his father’s health on Monday

Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro underwent a second surgical procedure to treat persistent, chronic hiccups that have complicated his recovery from hernia surgery on Christmas Day. According to his son Carlos Bolsonaro, the family is concerned about the former head of State’s health after a spike in blood pressure and new respiratory treatments.

To stop the involuntary contractions of the diaphragm, physicians at Brasilia’s DF Star Hospital performed a phrenic nerve block on the left side of the patient’s neck on Monday, following a similar, non-invasive ultrasound-guided intervention carried out on his right side this past Saturday.

The phrenic nerves are the only structures in the body that control the diaphragm’s contraction and relaxation. Using ultrasound for precision, doctors inject anesthetics to temporarily “short-circuit” the nerve impulses that trigger hiccups, to provide the muscle with a period of rest, allowing contractions —often caused by post-surgical irritation in the abdominal region— to cease.

“The early hours of today were very worrying as I monitored my father,” Carlos posted on X. “There are many challenges, and we all know that without constant medical monitoring and rigorous care, his life is seriously threatened.”

According to the family, Bolsonaro experienced “very high” blood pressure during the night, requiring immediate medical intervention. Additionally, the former president has officially begun treatment for sleep apnea, a condition that can further strain the cardiovascular system.

Bolsonaro has been hospitalized since Wednesday, December 24, when he was transferred from Federal Police headquarters to the hospital for a bilateral inguinal hernia surgery the next day. The procedure was authorized by Supreme Court Justice Alexandre De Moraes.

Medical experts suggest that Bolsonaro’s history of abdominal surgeries, dating back to his 2018 campaign stabbing, has made his digestive and respiratory systems particularly sensitive to post-operative complications like hiccups.

As of Monday evening, Bolsonaro was reported to be stable and continuing rehabilitation therapy while receiving preventative treatment for venous thrombosis.

Composed of representatives from the country’s three major political parties (National, Liberal, and Libre), the CNE has until midnight tomorrow to issue the final declaration of the elections held four weeks ago, which were marred by numerous irregularities.

Ochoa, of the ruling Liberty and Refoundation Party (Libre), denounced that his colleagues from the two-party system on the electoral body, Ana Hall (Liberal) and Cossette Lopez (National), are deliberately delaying the special recount of thousands of ballots containing inconsistencies.

He accused both council members of having no intention whatsoever of counting the more than 400 tally sheets from the Central District, the municipality that includes Tegucigalpa—the one with the largest electorate in Honduras—given the virtual victory of the Libre mayor and candidate for reelection, Jorge Aldana.

Although he admitted that the winning candidate goes by a narrow margin, the mayor of the capital city asserted that the right-wing National Party’s “tough hand” intends to impose its candidate, Juan Diego Zelaya, through fraud, without finalizing the recount from all the polling stations.

“Proceeding with the general declaration of elections without processing the 435 pending tally sheets from the Central District is fraud, an act of corruption and violence that usurps and steals the popular will of our capital, Tegucigalpa,” the Libre council member emphasized on his X account.

“They are pushing this process to the limit to do what was done at the presidential level. A declaration without all the tally sheets is illegal,” Ochoa pointed out.

jdt/jha/edu

In Mexico’s Michoacán highlands, Mazahua artisans stitch Day of the Dead regalia as monarch butterflies shift routes with climate change. A new Casa de la Cultura Mazahua aims to turn heritage into community tourism, despite cartel warnings and fragile forests.

Threading Memory into Cloth

On the outskirts of Crescencio Morales in Michoacán, Lucila Marín García works an old Singer sewing machine while her daughter and niece embroider sashes by hand. Their stitch, the fine cross-stitch called lomillo, belongs to the Indigenous Mazahua community, whose roots in this region reach back to the 12th century.

The work is communal. The Garcías, along with three other families, are responsible for traditional shawls, skirts, and sashes for roughly 8,000 people in town, and each outfit takes about three hours. Mexico City is a three-hour drive east, but the U.S. paid better, drawing men north. Antonio Zendeja recently spent a year commuting from New Jersey to a chicken factory in Philadelphia.

Butterflies That Move the Market

Since at least the 1970s, millions of monarch butterflies have wintered in the surrounding forests after migrating from the U.S. and Canada. About 600,000 people trek to sanctuaries across Mexico’s Central Highlands, most of them in Michoacán. The Mazahua understand the monarchs as returning souls, arriving around Nov. 1 and Nov. 2. Yedani Paola Hernández Vasquez says colonies once blanketed more than 40 acres in the 1990s and have dipped to 2.2 acres in recent years.

A Culture House Under Warning Signs
The Casa de la Cultura Mazahua, which opened in September, was created by Chris Rainier and Olivia McKendrick through Cultural Sanctuaries. Visitors pay 150 pesos—about $8.20—to fund local services and workshops. Operators are testing routes, including Journey Mexico, whose Matteo Luthi introduced 30-minute helicopter transfers from Mexico City in 2025. Nearby, Jésus González Villareal—Don Chuy—blesses the forest with a conch shell and leads a temazcal where bienvenidas abuelitas frames gratitude as practice. Adapted from Bloomberg Businessweek reporting and interviews by Jen Murphy.

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Back in Venezuela, survivors of El Salvador’s Cecot mega-prison prepare for New Year’s rituals while living with stigma from Trump-era gang accusations. Their release in July 2025 ended confinement, but not the nightmares, job losses, or politics that followed them home.

Año Viejo, New Wounds

In 2025, a Venezuelan family circle bends over scrap wood and rags, shaping an año viejo—a life-size doll stuffed with fireworks and old clothes. At midnight on New Year’s Eve, they will set it ablaze. Andry Hernández Romero smiles at the thought. “This is our way of welcoming the new year with joy,” he said, insisting the year can still restart.

Only five months earlier, Hernández Romero, 32, was released from El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center, Cecot. He had been one of 252 Venezuelan men the Donald Trump administration accused—without due process—of belonging to Tren de Aragua. Many were asylum seekers; most had no criminal records. Human Rights Watch and Cristosal later said the men faced near-daily physical and psychological abuse, including beatings and, in some cases, sexual assault.

In July 2025, a diplomatic deal between Venezuela and the US freed them abruptly. The Guardian stayed in touch with Hernández Romero and three other men as they returned home. “There were so many mixed feelings on the way home,” he said—joy at hugging his father and brother, and the shock of realizing everything had changed.

Cecot’s Afterimages

The others struggled to name what freedom felt like. Jerce Reyes Barrios, 36, called it a jumble of “happiness? Sadness?” José Manuel Ramos Bastidas, 31, said: “I never thought I would get out.” Edicson David Quintero Chacón, 29, tried to savor ordinary pleasures—time with his kids, TikTok restored, a two-hour motorcycle ride. “Freedom is the most beautiful thing in life,” he said. Then the memories returned: “It’s like a movie that keeps playing in my head.”

Quintero said guards beat detainees for talking and medical visits felt like mockery. Guards used La Isla, a dark isolation room. Hernández Romero has said he was dragged there and sexually abused; he prays for justice “from Father God.” Ramos recalled hunger strikes, a “blood protest,” and days of “blow after blow.”

Freedom Under Suspicion

Back in Venezuela, desperation remains. Ramos left in January 2024 to pay bills for a newborn son with severe respiratory issues; now he hunts repair jobs to earn “something.” Quintero, who had worked since 12, left in April 2024. At the US southern border, he was given an ankle monitor and ICE check-ins; in June, he was detained during one. He spent more than a year in custody—at Stewart in Georgia, then Cecot—and returned to scarce work and a family waiting.

Detention also made them famous. “We became almost famous,” Hernández Romero said. During Pride month in Washington DC, the Human Rights Campaign rallied for him, and New Queens Pride in New York honored him. The Trump administration called them “ruthless terrorist gang members.” In late March, Kristi Noem toured Cecot, while Nayib Bukele posted a video of deportees being frog-marched into the prison.

Back home, suspicion sticks. “No hair salons in Venezuela want to give me a job,” Hernández Romero said. Even opponents of Nicolás Maduro eye him as swap bait. What steadies him is the bond: “We entered 252 strangers, and we left 252 brothers.” He stays close to Carlos Uzcátegui, 32, and recently did makeup for Uzcátegui’s bride, Gabriela Mora, who is now expecting a baby. Adapted from The Guardian reporting, quotes, and interviews by Maanvi Singh.

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Mexico braced for President Trump’s new tariffs, expecting factories to stall and exports to sink. Instead, shipments to the U.S. climbed, powered by USMCA rules, nearshoring bets, and a widening gap with China, a trade war twist reshaping North America.

Exports That Refused to Fall

In 2025, as President Trump raised tariffs, officials and economists feared Mexico’s export-led economy would take a devastating hit. The early numbers told a different story. Even with steep duties on autos, steel, and aluminum bound for the U.S., Mexican manufacturing exports to America rose almost 9% from January to November, compared with the first 11 months of 2024. Auto exports fell close to 6%, while other manufactured goods surged 17%.

Trade ties kept swelling: goods trade between the U.S. and Mexico is on track for nearly $900 billion this year. Mexico’s central bank projects 0.3% growth in 2025, not the 1% contraction once expected, said Kathryn Exum of Gramercy Funds Management, which manages about $7 billion. The Penn Wharton Budget Model estimates Mexico’s effective tariff rate at 4.7%, compared with 37.1% for China and around 10% globally. Despite “zombie” fears, almost 85% of Mexico’s exports remain tariff-free under the USMCA.

Liberation Day and The Ringing Phone

Nearshore Co. helps foreign manufacturers produce U.S.-bound goods in Mexico through 18 industrial plants, mostly along the U.S.-Mexico border. Co-chief executive Jorge Gonzalez Henrichsen said many investment plans were put on ice until tariff levels became clear. Then April 2 arrived—“Liberation Day,” as Trump calls it. Outside the White House, he unveiled new rates for almost every country—excluding Mexico. Calls flooded in from companies eager to restart paused projects. “In fact, it was Liberation Day for us,” Gonzalez Henrichsen said.

The scramble shows how Mexico dodged a bullet: it didn’t win immunity, it won a better relative deal. Producers still cite the old advantages—proximity to U.S. markets, lower-cost manufacturing, and a free-trade agreement that is battered but intact. Higher duties on China let Mexico fill some of the gap in everything from electronics to industrial inputs. It also softened talk of a “zombie” U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement by showing that the rules still matter when the world becomes unpredictable.

A Pact Too Costly to Kill

Keeping that advantage has required political choreography. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum engaged Trump, tightened drug enforcement along the border, expelled imprisoned cartel bosses wanted by the U.S., and imposed 50% tariffs on Chinese-made vehicles and other goods. “Mexico has approached the relationship with the U.S. quite constructively,” Exum said. Still, Mexico faces the highest tariffs in a generation: 25% on non-U.S. content in autos, up to 50% on aluminum and steel, and 25% on non-USMCA-compliant exports tied to U.S. claims about drug flows.

In testimony in mid-December, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said Mexico captured about 25% of the reduction in the U.S. trade deficit with China, citing “the important role that Mexico plays in U.S. supply-chain resilience efforts.” Mexico overtook China as the top foreign-goods supplier to the U.S. in 2023 and is now its largest buyer, in part because many U.S. imports are intermediate goods that return north as exports. “The level of integration is such that the cost of eliminating the USMCA would be monumental,” said Luis de la Calle, a Mexican negotiator of NAFTA more than three decades ago.

Next comes 2026, when the USMCA is up for review. Antonio Ortiz-Mena of AOM Advisors expects uncertainty to persist but says Mexico and Canada should keep lower average tariffs than the rest of the world. “While it won’t be a perfect agreement, we are heading in that direction,” he said. Mexican shipments of data-processing equipment more than doubled this year, tied to U.S. data centers and artificial intelligence. Jorge Gonzalez Henrichsen said a U.S. customer expanded in Mexico from one plant and 18 employees in 2019 to four plants and 600 workers, with 1,000 more expected next year. “We haven’t had any clients close down and pack up to the U.S.,” he said. In Mexico, improvisation is an old economic reflex. This feature draws on The Wall Street Journal reporting, interviews, and quotations by Santiago Pérez and Anthony Harrup.

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