HARRISBURG, Pa. — Former U.S. President Donald Trump told thousands of members of the National Rifle Association that “no one will lay a finger on your firearms” if he returns to the White House, and he bragged that during his time as president he “did nothing” to curb guns.

“During my four years nothing happened. And there was great pressure on me having to do with guns. We did nothing. We didn’t yield,” he said as he addressed the NRA’s Great American Outdoor Show in Harrisburg on Friday evening.

Casting himself as “the best friend gun owners have ever had in the White House,” Trump pledged to continue to protect gun owners’ rights, even as the country grapples with a crisis of gun violence and mass shootings that have left more than 3,000 dead since 2006.

“Your Second Amendment will always be safe with me as your president,” he said.

Fresh off another dominant win in the Nevada caucuses Thursday night, Trump used the NRA forum to highlight his support of gun rights, a major priority for GOP voters. The issue is also a major motivator for Democrats as well as younger voters who grew up participating in active shooter drills and have witnessed a spate of school shootings in recent years.

Next week will mark the sixth anniversary of one of those shootings, the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida that left 17 dead.

Trump grappled with Parkland and other mass shootings as president, and at times pledged to strengthen gun laws, only to back away from those vows.

At a meeting with survivors and family members of the Parkland shooting in 2018, Trump promised to be “very strong on background checks” and later scolded a Republican senator for being “afraid of the NRA,” claiming he would stand up to the gun lobby and finally get results on quelling gun violence.

But he later retreated after a meeting with the group, expressing support for modest changes to the federal background check system and for arming teachers, while saying in a post on X, formerly Twitter, that there was “not much political support (to put it mildly).”

In December 2018, his administration banned bump stocks, the attachments that allow semi-automatic weapons to fire like machine guns and were used during the October 2017 shooting massacre in Las Vegas.

Trump’s appearance on Friday in the critical swing state came as the Republican nominating contest that he has been dominating turns toward South Carolina. The state’s February 24 primary may prove the last chance for Nikki Haley, Trump’s last remaining rival, to blunt the former president’s march toward the nomination. He and Haley will hold dueling campaign events there this weekend.

Trump hopes that a commanding win in the first-in-the-South race will deliver a devastating blow to Haley, who has yet to win a GOP contest. Haley, who was elected South Carolina’s governor twice, is betting that a home state advantage will lift her to a strong performance that could keep her in the race through Super Tuesday on March 5, when more than a dozen states will hold contests awarding a massive swath of the delegates needed to capture the GOP nomination.

“We’re leading everybody,” Trump said late Thursday following his Nevada victory. “Is there any way we can call the election for next Tuesday? That’s all I want.”

Trump had no competition in Nevada after Haley chose to skip Thursday’s caucuses to participate in an earlier primary that offered no delegates. But even without Trump on that ballot, Haley came in a distant second, swamped by GOP voters who picked a “none of these candidates” option.

Beyond Haley’s embarrassing Nevada defeat, Trump had an especially fortuitous week.

On Thursday morning, the Supreme Court seemed weary of attempts to kick him off the 2024 ballot under the Constitution’s Insurrection Clause. Both conservative and liberal justices voiced skepticism during a hearing over Colorado’s decision to disqualify Trump from its primary ballot because he refuses to accept the results of the 2020 election, which culminated in the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Hours later, special counsel Robert Hur released a long-awaited and bitingly critical report that concluded criminal charges against President Joe Biden were not warranted but said there was evidence Biden willfully retained and shared highly classified information when he was a private citizen, including documents about military and foreign policy in Afghanistan. The report repeatedly pointed to Biden’s hazy memory in language that has raised new concerns about the president’s competency and age — a top concern for voters.

The findings will almost certainly blunt Biden’s ability to criticize Trump over his handling of classified documents. Trump was charged by a different special counsel, Jack Smith, for illegally hoarding classified records at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida after he left office and then obstructing government efforts to get them back.

Despite abundant differences between the cases, Trump, who insists he did nothing wrong, on Friday cast the decision to charge him and not Biden as “nothing more than selective prosecution of Biden’s political opponent: Me.”

“Trump was peanuts by comparison,” he claimed.

Trump’s speech to the NRA — his eighth, according to the group — comes as the former political juggernaut has played a diminished role this election cycle amid financial troubles, dwindling membership and infighting.

The group’s longtime CEO, Wayne LaPierre, resigned last month ahead of a trial in New York over allegations that he treated himself to millions of dollars in private jet flights, yacht trips, African safaris and other extravagant perks at the powerful gun rights organization’s expense.

The New York attorney general sued LaPierre and three co-defendants in 2020, claiming widespread misspending and self-enrichment. The organization filed for bankruptcy and sought to incorporate in Texas instead of New York, but a judge rejected the move.
…

HONOLULU — A magnitude 5.7 earthquake struck the world’s largest active volcano on Friday — Mauna Loa on the Big Island of Hawaii — knocking items off shelves and cutting power in a nearby town but not immediately prompting reports of serious damage.

The earthquake, which didn’t cause a tsunami and which the U.S. Geological Survey initially reported as magnitude 6.3, was centered on Mauna Loa’s southern flank at a depth of 37 kilometers, 2 kilometers southwest of Pahala.

“It shook us bad to where it wobbled some knees a little bit,” said Derek Nelson, the manager of the Kona Canoe Club restaurant in the oceanside community of Kona, on the island’s western side. “It shook all the windows in the village.”

There was a power outage affecting about 300 customers in Naalehu that appeared to be related to the earthquake, said Darren Pai, spokesperson for Hawaiian Electric Company.

The earthquake struck after 10 a.m. local time, less than two hours before an unrelated quake with a preliminary magnitude of 4.6 shook Southern California.

Mauna Loa last erupted in late 2022. It’s one of five volcanoes that make up the Big Island, which is the southernmost in the Hawaiian archipelago.

Earthquakes can occur in Hawaii for a variety of reasons, including magma moving under the surface. In Friday’s case, the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory said the likely cause was the weight of the Hawaiian Islands bending and stressing the Earth’s crust and upper mantle.

That’s what caused a magnitude 6.9 earthquake that struck off Kiholo Bay on the Big Island’s northwest coast in 2006. That temblor damaged roads and buildings and knocked out power as far away as Honolulu, on the island of Oahu, about 322 kilometers to the north.

Helen Janiszewski, an assistant professor in the University of Hawaii at Manoa’s Department of Earth Sciences, said the Hawaiian Islands lie on the Pacific oceanic tectonic plate and have some of the world’s biggest volcanoes.

“So, there’s a huge amount of mass of rock associated with the islands and because of that, it’s actually enough to slightly displace the Pacific oceanic plate beneath the islands,” she said. “And that force causes earthquakes sometimes.”

This type of earthquake tends to occur several tens of kilometers beneath the Earth’s surface in the mantle, Janiszewski said. Quakes caused by moving magma tend to hit more shallow depths.

The observatory said Friday’s earthquake didn’t affect either Mauna Loa or a neighboring volcano, Kilauea.

There were no immediate reports of damage to telescopes on the summit of Mauna Kea, another nearby volcano that has some of the world’s most advanced observatories for studying the night sky.

Jessica Ferracane, a spokesperson at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, said there was no apparent damage to its roads or visitor centers. Earthquakes are not uncommon, she said, but this one was “much more intense” than usual.

The Hawaiian Islands have been built by successive volcanic eruptions over millions of years. The vast majority of earthquakes in Hawaii occur on and around the Big Island. About once every 1.5 years, there is an earthquake in the state that is magnitude 5 or greater, according to the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory.

The Big Island is mostly rural and hosts cattle ranches, coffee farms and resort hotels. But it also has a few small cities, including the county seat of Hilo, population 45,000.

Friday’s earthquake could be felt in Honolulu. Big Island Mayor Mitch Roth was at a cardiologist appointment there and initially thought he was experiencing side effects from a procedure: “All of a sudden I felt like I was getting dizzy.”

He said he immediately got on the phone with his emergency management officials when he realized it was an earthquake, and that he was heading to the Honolulu airport to try to get an earlier flight back.

Grace Tabios, the owner of Will and Grace Filipino Variety Store in Naalehu, said the shaking knocked down her husband, who was working at their coffee farm in Pahala. At the store, jars of mayonnaise and medicine from the Philippines fell off the shelves.

“Some things fell down but didn’t break,” Tabios said.
…

Washington — Joe Biden’s Republican rivals are pouncing on questions about his mental acuity, following a verbal slip by the U.S. president that has exacerbated Democrats’ anxiety about his age.

“Biden’s not going to be any sharper in November,” said Jason Miller, senior adviser to the Trump campaign in a statement to VOA. The Make America Great Again Political Action Committee released a statement saying, “Joe Biden isn’t just senile, he put our national security at risk.”

Former President Donald Trump has a commanding lead in the Republican primaries and is likely to become the party’s nominee, despite facing 91 felony indictments in various federal and state criminal cases.

The campaign of Nikki Haley, who is trailing Trump, released a statement that Biden “should take a mental competency test immediately” and make it public.

“Joe Biden can’t remember major events in his life, like when he was vice president or when his son died,” Nikki Haley said. “That is sad, but it will be even sadder if we have a person in the White House who is not mentally up to the most important job in the world.”

Biden’s verbal slip

Republicans launched their renewed attacks after the president made a verbal slip Thursday evening, mistakenly referring to Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi as “the president of Mexico” while he was highlighting efforts he made to secure aid for the people of Gaza.

The gaffe happened while Biden was pushing back against reporters’ questioning on a special counsel’s report about his mishandling of classified documents that noted his lapses in memory, citing examples of him being unable to recall defining moments in his own life, such as when he served as vice president or when his son Beau passed away.

“My memory is fine,” a visibly angry Biden shot back as he denied forgetting when his son died. Beau Biden died of brain cancer in 2015 at the age of 46.

Three-quarters of voters, including half of Democrats, say they have concerns about Biden’s mental and physical health, according to an NBC News poll released this week.

Less than half of voters have concerns about Trump’s mental and physical health according to the same poll, despite his multiple flubs. During a campaign event earlier this month Trump appeared to mistakenly refer to his rival Haley as former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi when discussing the Jan. 6, 2021. He has previously mixed up Biden and former President Barack Obama.

No charges

Special Counsel Robert Hur has determined that Biden will not be charged for mishandling classified documents. However, Hur’s characterization of the president’s memory is likely to provide Biden’s Republican rivals ammunition in their messaging that he is unable to lead the country.

Trump, who is under federal indictment with 37 felony counts related to the mishandling of classified documents, obstructing justice and making false statements, sharpened his attack on Biden’s handling of the documents.

He called Biden’s case “100 times different and more severe than mine,” charging in a campaign statement Thursday that there is “a two-tiered system of justice and unconstitutional selective prosecution!” and “election interference.”

In his report, Hur pre-empted such assertions.

“Unlike the evidence involving Mr. Biden, the allegations set forth in the indictment of Mr. Trump, if proven, would present serious aggravating facts,” the report noted. “Most notably, after being given multiple chances to return classified documents and avoid prosecution, Mr. Trump allegedly did the opposite.”
…

The University of the People, a tuition-free online university, was founded in 2009 and accredited in 2014. The game-changing goal of the U.S. nonprofit is to make education accessible to some 140,000 students from 200 countries. Maxim Adams has the story. Video: Dana Preobrazhenskaya.
…

Fresh turmoil hit Haiti’s government on Wednesday as Prime Minister Ariel Henry replaced his justice minister and a senior official stepped down, saying he could not serve a premier under suspicion in the assassination of President Jovenel Moise.Amid a brewing political crisis, Henry replaced Justice Minister Rockfeller Vincent with Interior Minister Liszt Quitel, who will take charge of both portfolios, according to a statement in Haiti’s official gazette.The resignation of Renald Luberice, who served more than four years as secretary general of Haiti’s Council of Ministers, came after new evidence emerged linking Henry to the former justice ministry official who investigators say is one of the main suspects behind Moise’s killing.Prosecutors say phone records show the two spoke twice around 4 a.m. on July 7, just hours after Moise, 53, was shot dead when heavily armed assassins stormed his private residence.Henry has denied any involvement in the murder but he has not directly addressed the phone calls and on Tuesday he replaced Haiti’s chief prosecutor who had been seeking to charge him as a suspect and ban him from leaving the country.The premier last week dismissed attempts to interview him over Moise’s killing as politicking designed to distract him from the work at hand in the poorest country in the Americas where power struggles have for decades hampered development.In a letter shared on social media Wednesday, Luberice said he cannot serve someone who “does not intend to cooperate with justice, seeking, on the contrary, by all means, to obstruct it.”Henry on Wednesday replaced Luberice with Josue Pierre-Louis, a veteran technocrat who has since 2017 held the rank of government minister in his role as the General Coordinator of the Office of Management and Human Resources (OMRH), according to the gazette statement.Killing and crisisMore than 40 people, including 18 Colombians, have been detained so far as part of the investigation into Moise’s killing. The investigation has made little apparent progress to solve the mystery and has been riddled with irregularities.Several judicial officials went into hiding after saying they received death threats while the original judge assigned to the case recused himself.Moise named Henry, a neurosurgeon and political moderate, to the position of prime minister just days before he was assassinated in a bid to placate the political tensions that plagued his mandate and led to a major constitutional and political crisis.The country has just a handful of elected officials after failing two years ago to hold legislative or municipal elections amid a political gridlock. Moise had ruled by decree. But there is no constitutional framework for a government in a situation like the current one.As such, Henry needs a broad consensus in order to govern. On the weekend he announced an agreement between Haiti’s main political forces on a transition government aiming to lead next year to elections and a new constitutional referendum.But any sign of weakness could lead to a fresh power struggle.Senate President Joseph Lambert, who tried to claim the presidency in the days following Moise’s killing as the most senior elected official remaining, made a fresh swipe at the post on Tuesday evening.He called local media to cover his swearing in at parliament but a gunfight interrupted proceedings. The Senate in a statement blamed the shootings on gangs that were “hired by dark forces in order to thwart the work of the Senators.”Lambert has called for a news conference on Wednesday evening.His likely claim to power will be “another quagmire to this extra-constitutional scenario we find ourselves in,” said a Western diplomat based in Port-au-Prince. 
…

Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry has fired and replaced the chief public prosecutor who was seeking charges against him as a suspect in the July assassination of President Jovenel Moise.Prosecutor Ben-Ford Claude had sent a letter to a judge Tuesday, alleging that phone records showed the prime minister spoke twice with Joseph Felix Badio, an official wanted by police in connection with Moise’s assassination, on the morning of July 7, hours after the president was gunned down at his home.Claude said he asked Prime Minister Henry to discuss the evidence. Claude also asked Haiti’s immigration authority to issue an order banning Henry from leaving the country.In a letter released Tuesday but dated the day before, the prime minister’s office  said the prosecutor was being dismissed for an undisclosed “administrative error.”  The office posted a tweet late Tuesday announcing that Frantz Louis Juste has been named to replace Claude as chief prosecutor.More than 40 suspects have been arrested in the investigation into Moise’s killing, including 18 former Colombian soldiers and two Americans of Haitian descent. Badio remains at large.Henry, a political moderate and neurosurgeon, was named prime minister by Moise days before his death in an effort to ease friction between rivals and create a new consensus.Some information for this report came from the Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse. 
…

Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry on Tuesday replaced the chief public prosecutor who had been seeking charges against him as a suspect in the assassination of President Jovenel Moise, plunging the country into a fresh political crisis.Moise was shot dead on July 7 when assassins stormed his private residence in the hills above Port-au-Prince. The 53-year-old had been governing by decree for more than a year after Haiti failed to hold legislative and municipal elections amid a political gridlock and had faced many calls to step down.His death has left Haiti in an even deeper constitutional and political crisis as it has only a handful of elected officials nationwide.Henry, a political moderate and neurosurgeon whom Moise named prime minister just days before his death in an attempt to reduce political tensions, has sought to forge a new consensus between different political factions.But allegations over his possible involvement in Moise’s killing are now overshadowing that.Prosecutor Bed-Ford Claude said last week that phone records showed Henry had twice communicated with a man believed to be the mastermind behind Moise’s killing on the night of the crime. FILE – A picture of the late Haitian President Jovenel Moise hangs on a wall before a news conference by interim Prime Minister Claude Joseph, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, July 13, 2021.That suspect, a former justice ministry official whom Henry has publicly defended, is now on the run.Henry dismissed his request to discuss the matter as politicking and did not respond to the allegations.That prompted Claude to write on Tuesday to the judge overseeing the investigation into Moise’s slaying and ask him to charge Henry as a suspect.He also wrote to Haitian migration services ordering them not to let the prime minister leave the country “due to serious presumption relative to the assassination of the president.”Later on Tuesday, a letter from Henry to Claude dated September 13 emerged in which he said he was firing him for “grave administrative error,” without going into detail. In a separate letter dated September 14, he named Frantz Louis Juste to the post.It remains unclear whether the order actually is valid, as Haiti’s 1987 constitution mandates that the prosecutor can only be appointed or fired by the president, a position that remains vacant.Decades of political instability as well as natural catastrophes have plagued Haiti’s development. Its aid-dependent economy is the poorest in the Americas, more than a third of Haitians face acute food insecurity, and gangs have turned swathes of the capital into no-go areas.Claude had invited Henry on Friday to meet with him to discuss the phone calls with the suspect, noting that he could only summon the premier on presidential orders, but the country was without a president.Haiti’s Office of Citizen Protection demanded on Saturday that Henry step down and hand himself over to the justice system.Henry retorted on Twitter that “no distraction, invitation, summons, maneuver, menace or rearguard action” would distract him from his work.The prime minister announced on Saturday that Haiti’s main political forces had reached an agreement to establish a transition government until the holding of presidential elections and a referendum on whether to adopt a new constitution next year.The agreement establishes a Council of Ministers under Henry’s leadership.A constituent assembly made of 33 members appointed by institutions and civil society organizations will have three months to prepare the new constitution.Moise’s attempts at holding elections and a constitutional referendum were attacked for being too partisan. Critics called them veiled attempts at installing a dictatorship.His supporters said he was being punished for going after a corrupt ruling elite and seeking to end undue privileges. 
…

Haiti’s chief prosecutor on Tuesday asked a judge to charge Prime Minister Ariel Henry in the slaying of the president and asked officials to bar him from leaving the country. The order filed by Port-au-Prince prosecutor Bed-Ford Claude came on the same day that he had requested Henry meet with him and explain why a key suspect in the assassination of President Jovenel Moise called him twice just hours after the killing. “There are enough compromising elements … to prosecute Henry and ask for his outright indictment,” Claude wrote in the order. A spokesman for Henry could not immediately be reached for comment. Claude said the calls were made at 4:03 and 4:20 a.m. on July 7, adding that evidence shows the suspect, Joseph Badio, was in the vicinity of Moise’s home at that time. Badio once worked for Haiti’s Ministry of Justice and at the government’s anticorruption unit until he was fired in May amid accusations of violating unspecified ethical rules. FILE – A picture of the late Haitian President Jovenel Moise hangs on a wall before a news conference by interim Prime Minister Claude Joseph, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, July 13, 2021.In the two-page document, Claude said the calls lasted a total of seven minutes and that Henry was at the Hotel Montana in Port-au-Prince at that time. He also noted that a government official tweeted last month that Henry told him he never spoke with Badio. On Monday, Justice Minister Rockfeller Vincent ordered the chief of Haiti’s National Police to boost security for Claude because the prosecutor had received “important and disturbing” threats in the past five days. Robert Fatton, a Haitian politics expert at the University of Virginia, said there is clearly a fight within the government between Henry and those who supported Moise. “We have a very confusing situation, a power struggle at the moment, and we will see who will win it,” he said. “It’s not clear where we are going, and it’s not clear what the international community thinks about everything.” Henry has not specifically addressed the issue in public, although during a meeting with politicians and civil society leaders on Saturday, he said he is committed to helping stabilize Haiti. “Rest assured that no distraction, no summons or invitation, no maneuver, no threat, no rearguard combat, no aggression will distract me from my mission,” Henry said. “The real culprits, the intellectual authors and coauthor and sponsor of the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse will be found and brought to justice and punished for their crimes.” More than 40 suspects have been arrested in the case, including 18 former Colombian soldiers. Authorities are still looking for additional suspects, including Badio and a former Haitian senator. The investigation is ongoing despite court clerks having gone into hiding after saying they had been threatened with death if they didn’t change certain names and statements in their reports. In addition, a Haitian judge assigned to oversee the investigation stepped down last month citing personal reasons. He left after one of his assistants died in unclear circumstances. A new judge has been assigned. 
 
…

A report submitted to the U.N. Human Rights Council blasts the Nicaraguan government’s harsh crackdown on opposition leaders in advance of November 7 Presidential and Parliamentary elections.Critics accuse Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega of systematically ridding himself of viable opposition candidates to secure a fourth consecutive term as President of the country.In her latest update to the Council, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michele Bachelet said increasing restrictions by Nicaraguan authorities on peoples’ right to vote are undermining free and fair elections. She said Nicaraguans should be able to exercise their right to vote without intimidation, violence, or administrative interference.Her report documents the arbitrary detention of 16 people between June 22 and September 6. They include political leaders, human rights defenders, businesspeople, journalists, as well as peasant and student leaders.She said these arrests are in addition to 20 other government opponents who have been detained since May 28. She spoke through an interpreter.“This group includes six men and one woman who have publicly stated that they were aspiring to the presidency…The large majority of these people remain deprived of their liberty and have been so for up to 90 days, being held incommunicado, some in isolation without any official confirmation as to their whereabouts from the authorities to their families,” she said.The Public Prosecutor’s Office says most of the people detained are accused of conspiracy to undermine national integrity and other crimes linked to the implementation of cooperation funds.U.N. rights chief Bachelet said attacks on freedom of expression and against the media and journalists have intensified. She said similar patterns of repression are being registered against human rights defenders, social and political leaders, among others. “Given this deteriorating situation in Nicaragua, it is essential that the government once again guarantee the full enjoyment of civil and political rights of all Nicaraguans, that they put an end to persecution of the opposition, press, and civil society, and that they immediately and unconditionally release the over 130 persons detained since April 2018, according to civil society sources,” said Bachelet.The Nicaraguan government has consistently brushed off U.N. and international criticism, claiming it is based on disinformation from North American and European countries seeking to maintain their colonial grip on the country. 
…

Chilean scientists have announced the discovery of the first-ever southern hemisphere remains of a type of Jurassic-era “winged lizard” known as a pterosaur.Fossils of the dinosaur which lived some 160 million years ago in what is today the Atacama desert, were unearthed in 2009.They have now been confirmed to be of a rhamphorhynchine pterosaur — the first such creature to be found in Gondwana, the prehistoric supercontinent that later formed the southern hemisphere landmasses.Researcher Jhonatan Alarcon of the University of Chile said the creatures had a wingspan of up to 2 meters, a long tail, and pointed snout.”We show that the distribution of animals in this group was wider than known to date,” he added.The discovery was also “the oldest known pterosaur found in Chile,” the scientists reported in the scientific journal Acta Palaeontologica Polonica.      
 
…

Abimael Guzmán, the leader of the brutal Shining Path insurgency in Peru who was captured in 1992, died on Saturday in a military hospital after an illness, the Peruvian government said.  Guzmán, 86, died after suffering from an infection, Justice Minister Aníbal Torres said.  Guzmán, a former philosophy professor, launched an insurgency against the state in 1980 and presided over numerous car bombings and assassinations in the years that followed. After his capture, he was sentenced in life in prison for terrorism and other crimes.  President Pedro Castillo tweeted that Guzmán was responsible for taking countless lives.  “Our position condemning terrorism is firm and unwavering. Only in democracy will we build a Peru of justice and development for our people,” Castillo said.  Guzmán preached a messianic vision of a classless Maoist utopia based on pure communism, considering himself the “Fourth Sword of Marxism” after Karl Marx, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin and Mao Zedong. He advocated a peasant revolution in which rebels would first gain control of the countryside and then advance to the cities. Guzmán’s movement declared armed struggle on the eve of Peru’s presidential elections in May 1980, the first democratic vote after 12 years of military rule. Prison built for himThroughout the 1980s, the man known to his followers as Presidente Gonzalo built up an organization that grew to 10,000 armed fighters before his capture inside a Lima safehouse by a special intelligence group of the Peruvian police backed by the United States. Since then, he was housed in a military prison on the shores of the Pacific that was built to hold him. By the time Guzmán called for peace talks a year after his arrest, guerrilla violence had claimed tens of thousands of lives in Peru, displaced at least 600,000 people and caused an estimated $22 billion in damage. A truth commission in 2003 blamed the Shining Path for more than half of nearly 70,000 estimated deaths and disappearances caused by various rebel groups and brutal government counterinsurgency efforts between 1980 and 2000. Yet it lived on in a political movement formed by Guzmán’s followers that sought amnesty for all “political prisoners,” including the Shining Path founder. The Movement for Amnesty and Fundamental Right failed, however, to register as a political party in 2012 in the face of fierce opposition from Peruvians with bitter memories of the destruction brought by the Shining Path. In its songs and slogans, the Shining Path celebrated bloodletting, describing death as necessary to “irrigate” the revolution. Its militants bombed electrical towers, bridges and factories in the countryside, assassinated mayors and massacred villagers. In the insurgency’s later years, they targeted civilians in Lima with indiscriminate bombings. The Shining Path was severely weakened after Guzmán’s capture and his later calls for peace talks. Small bands of rebels have nevertheless remained active in remote valleys, producing cocaine and protecting drug runners. 
…

A section of mountain on the outskirts of Mexico City gave way Friday, plunging rocks the size of small homes onto a densely populated neighborhood and leaving at least one person dead and 10 others missing.Firefighters scaled a three-story pile of rocks that appeared to be resting on houses in Tlalnepantla, which is part of Mexico state. The state surrounds the capital on three sides.As rescuers climbed the immense pile of debris, they occasionally raised their fists in the air, the familiar signal for silence to listen for people trapped below. Firefighters and volunteers formed bucket brigades to pass 19-liter containers of smaller debris away as they excavated.“In this moment our priority is focused on rescuing the people who unfortunately were surprised at the site of the incident,” said Tlalnepantla Mayor Raciel Pérez Cruz in a video message.Authorities had evacuated surrounding homes and asked people to avoid the area so rescuers could work.Rescuers carried a body on a stretcher covered with a sheet past AP journalists. The Mexico state Civil Defense agency said in a statement that at least 10 people were reported missing.Among the volunteers were 30-year-old construction worker Martin Carmona, 30, and his 14-year-old son. “They organized us in a chain to take out buckets of sand, stone and rubble,” Carmona said. “A coworker lives there. He has a wife and two young children under the debris.”Carmona and his son arrived to the pile before government rescuers and his friend was already there digging for his wife and kids.Neighbors began to complain that they need more help and organization.Carmona said rescuers heard children, but after two hours of removing debris, authorities told volunteers to leave the area. Only relatives stayed to help the rescuers.A boulder that plunged from a mountainside rests among homes in Tlalnepantla, on the outskirts of Mexico City, when a mountain gave way on Sept. 10, 2021.Search dogs clambered over the rubble with their handlers.Ana Luisa Borges, 39, said she lives just three houses down from those hit by the landslide.“It thundered horribly,” she said of the sound of the slide. “I grabbed my youngest son and ran out (of the house). Then came a very big cloud of dust.” Fortunately, her other four children were in school.“There are a number of houses there,” she said of the slide area. “There was a building, but they tell us there are people there and children. I saw one person come out with head injury.”Borges said they have been warned that another rock could come down and that she didn’t know where they were going to sleep tonight.“They’ve only told us that we have to leave (our homes),” she said.Tlalnepantla officials announced they were opening several shelters for displaced residents.The neighborhood is a heap of jumbled houses climbing the mountainside, many with corrugated tin roofs, separated in places by just a steep staircase.One massive boulder stopped against a two-story house barely its equal, knocking out the front wall and spilling the home’s contents into the street. A path of destruction traced uphill.Boulders that plunged from a mountainside rests among homes in Tlalnepantla, on the outskirts of Mexico City, when a mountain gave way on Sept. 10, 2021.Maximinio Andrade, who lives with his parents and siblings — 14 family members in all — near the slide walked down the steep street pushing a flat-screen television on a hand cart. He had not been home at the time of the landslide but feared thieves would enter now that the surrounding homes had been evacuated.“They’ve already started stealing from the destroyed homes,” he said.National Guard troops and rescue teams carrying lengths of rope made their way through narrow streets.Images from the area showed a segment of the steep, green side of the peak known as Chiquihuite sheared off above a field of giant rubble with closely packed homes remaining on either side.Mexico state Gov. Alfredo del Mazo said via Twitter that local, state and federal authorities were coordinating to secure the zone in case of more slides and to remove rubble to locate possible victims.The landslide follows days of heavy rain in central Mexico and a 7.0-magnitude earthquake Tuesday night near Acapulco that shook buildings 320 kilometers away in Mexico City.While visiting the scene later Friday, Del Mazo said authorities believe four homes were destroyed in the landslide and another 80 were evacuated as a precaution.“It’s likely the earthquake and the intense rain we have had in recent days have affected (the area) and for this came the landslide and the breakup of the mountain,” he said. 
…

A protest by Brazilian truckers loyal to President Jair Bolsonaro largely fizzled out Friday, to the relief of industries that feared supply shortages.Brazil’s infrastructure minister said in a statement early Friday that there were protests along highways in three states, Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina and Rondonia, but no roads were blocked. That compared with 16 states that had registered highway protests earlier in the week.The nation’s federal highway police said the protests “no longer present threats of partial or total blockades and are heading toward total demobilization.”Stirred up by Bolsonaro’s call to action against the Supreme Court at political rallies on Tuesday, the truck blockades gained steam on Wednesday. Earlier this week, the right-wing leader had accused the Supreme Court of preventing him from governing and called on Justice Alexandre de Moraes to step down.On Thursday, he sought to defuse the dispute and said he had told truckers to stand down, warning that if the protests continued past Sunday, it would bring about serious supply shortages.With scant rail infrastructure in Latin America’s largest country, the economy is heavily dependent on trucks and the protests threatened key export routes. A major truckers’ strike in 2018 brought activity to a standstill.Besides supporting Bolsonaro in his battle against the Supreme Court, truckers are unhappy about soaring diesel prices.Bolsonaro gained prominence in the 2018 presidential campaign with his early support for the truckers, and he has remained sympathetic to their complaints of high fuel prices.  
…

The U.S. National Hurricane Center says Hurricane Larry is expected to hit Newfoundland, on Canada’s northeast coast, late Friday as a Category 1 hurricane. In its latest report, forecasters with the hurricane center say Larry is 745 kilometers southwest of Cape Race, Newfoundland, and has maximum sustained winds of about 130 kph. It was moving quickly to the north-northeast about 46 kph and is expected to move faster as the day goes on and reach southeastern Newfoundland Friday night. Southeastern Newfoundland is expected to see hurricane conditions late Friday, with periods of heavy rain, high winds and heavy surf that could cause coastal flooding.  Meteorologists with The Washington Post report European weather models show the remnants of Larry will be swallowed by the jet stream over the next two to three days and bring heavy snow to eastern Greenland on Sunday and Monday. Meanwhile, hurricane center forecasters are watching a tropical disturbance over the western Caribbean Sea and portions of Central America and the Yucatan Peninsula.   They forecast that system will move north-northwest into the Bay of Campeche and merge with a pre-existing system by Sunday, and a named tropical depression or storm is likely to form before the system moves onshore along the western Gulf of Mexico coast Sunday or Monday. The Washington Post meteorologists, again looking at European weather models, say that storm could bring as much as 12 centimeters of rain to the Houston, Texas, area between Sunday and Wednesday of next week.  
…

Tropical Storm Olaf strengthened into a hurricane in the Pacific on Thursday as it churned toward the beach resorts of Los Cabos on Mexico’s Baja California peninsula, meteorologists said. Olaf was packing maximum winds of 145 kilometers per hour (90 mph), making it a Category 1 hurricane, the lowest on the five-level Saffir-Simpson scale, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. At 7 p.m. local time (0000 GMT Friday) the storm was about 72 km (45 miles) southeast of the seaside resort of Cabo San Lucas and moving northwest at 16 kph (10 mph), it reported. Mexico’s National Meteorological Service warned that Olaf was likely to make landfall as a Category 2 storm. A hurricane warning was in effect for a stretch of Baja California coastline from Los Barriles to Cabo San Lazaro. The storm was expected to move near or over the southern part of the peninsula on Thursday night and into Friday, forecasters said. “Preparations to protect life and property should be rushed to completion,” the hurricane center said. A dangerous storm surge was expected to be accompanied by large, damaging waves near the coast, it added, warning that heavy rainfall may trigger “significant and life-threatening flash flooding and mudslides.” Authorities set up storm shelters, and schoolchildren in the state of Baja California Sur were told to stay home on Friday. Ports were closed for smaller boats, and 24 flights were canceled at the Los Cabos and La Paz airports. The hurricane comes at a time when Mexico is still recovering from a 7.1 magnitude earthquake and major flooding in parts of the country. 
…

Organized crime, a struggling economy, and repression continue to drive many Central Americans from their homelands with increasing numbers opting to head for Spain, rather than the United States.  More than 120,000 Hondurans make up the largest group of Central Americans in Spain. Alfonso Beato in the northeastern Spanish city of Girona filed this report, narrated by Jonathan Spier.Camera:  Alfonso Beato Produced by:  Rod James 
…

Haiti’s government published a draft new constitution Wednesday and again promoted the idea that such reform is needed as the country remains mired in crisis since the assassination of President Jovenel Moise.”A new constitution would not be a panacea to resolve all of our problems,” Prime Minister Ariel Henry said. “But if we manage to agree on this way of organizing governance in a more balanced and efficient way, it will be a point of departure for other agreements on the future of our country.”Haitian politicians and everyday people are deeply divided over how their poor and disaster-prone nation should be run right now, as it tries to recover from the killing of Moise in his residence on July 7.The government formed after the assassination, led by Henry, wants general elections to be held as soon as possible, while the opposition says there should be a transitional government for two years.Besides legislative elections — which actually should have been held in 2018 but were delayed — and presidential elections, the government wants to push through a constitutional reform that Moise had already begun.The new charter would strengthen the powers of the president, at the expense of parliament.It would do away with the position of prime minister and create a vice presidency, which would be filled at the same time as the president in a single round of voting.Such an arrangement is designed to help Haiti avoid the gridlock it is painfully used to in getting things done: now, every time there is a new government, parliament needs to approve the prime minister’s policy agenda, and this is always tied up in endless debate among lawmakers.Defenders of the new constitution say it would help battle the chronic problem of corruption by making it easier to hold trials in regular courts of government officials, cabinet ministers and the president once he or she leaves office.As it stands now, the rarely used procedure for trying such officials is for the lower house of parliament to bring charges and the senate to hold a trial.”Immunity is not synonymous with impunity,” said Mona Jean, a lawyer who sits on the committee that drafted the new constitution. “A government job must not be a source of illicit enrichment.”Henry did not specify how he thinks the new constitution should be voted on.Moise had proposed a referendum, scheduled by the electoral administration for Nov. 7, but the idea proved controversial, with critics saying it violates the current constitution.It was written in 1987 after the fall of the Duvalier dictatorship and forbids “any popular consultation aimed at modifying the constitution through a referendum.” 
…

Four migrant defense groups in Mexico announced Wednesday that they had sought court injunctions to block what they called “massive” deportations, arguing the government was violating due process and Mexican and international law governing asylum.The groups said one legal action was filed September 3 in the southeastern state of Tabasco and another in Mexico City.The groups contend the government is acting illegally by expelling migrants “before dawn and at unestablished [border] points” and also by participating in chain expulsions of migrants first flown from the U.S. to southern Mexico and then carried over land by Mexican officials to the border with Guatemala. The migrants are not told of the possibility of seeking protection in Mexico, the groups said.The migrants expelled from the United States are removed under so-called Title 42 authority, a health provision enacted during the Trump administration with the justification of the COVID-19 pandemic but continued under the Biden administration.Flights, then busingMost recently, the U.S. has been flying non-Mexican migrants to airports in Mexico’s southern states of Chiapas and Tabasco. Mexican immigration authorities then bus them to the Guatemala border, even though many of them are not Guatemalan. In August, there were 34 such flights. U.N. agencies have expressed concern as well.The four organizations — Asylum Access, the Foundation for Justice, Without Borders and the Institute for Women in Migration — argue that the expulsions violate the ban on removing people with international protection needs and and that they don’t take into account the higher interest of children or the perspective of gender.In recent days, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has insisted Mexico respects the rights of migrants. The government has been criticized over sometimes violent clashes with migrants trying to walk north from the southern city of Tapachula.The president has said simply containing migrants in southern Mexico is not sustainable and sent a letter this week to U.S. President Joe Biden insisting the U.S. do more to address the root causes of migration in the region.
…

Lawyers for a Colombian businessman say they’re exploring their options after a court in the West African country of Cape Verde rejected their appeal to halt his extradition to the United States.The Cape Verde high court’s written judgment, dated August 30 but published Tuesday on the court’s website, said Alex Saab must stand trial in the United States.Saab is wanted on charges of laundering money through U.S. banks in connection with a Venezuelan bribery scheme. He has been held in Cape Verde since June 12, 2020, when he was arrested while his private plane stopped for fuel en route to Iran.Venezuela’s socialist government had protested his arrest, saying Saab was acting as a special envoy to seek food, medical supplies and fuel for the South American country.The U.S. government has imposed strict sanctions on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and others in his administration.’Political battle’Geraldo Almeida, one of Saab’s attorneys, told VOA’s Portuguese Service that the case had turned into a “political battle taking into account” the U.S. government’s power.Almeida said he and others on Saab’s defense team were not “throwing in the towel.”But João Resende-Santos, a law professor at the Higher Institute of Legal and Social Sciences in Cape Verde, told VOA that no further appeals are available.  “The next step is the foreign affairs ministry to communicate to the U.S. Embassy in Cape Verde about the court’s decision. This administrative process is brief and the U.S. Embassy has 45 days to bring Alex Saab to the U.S.,” he said.  In early January, Cape Verde’s Court of Appeal in Barlavento ruled that Saab should be extradited to the United States. The defense appealed to the country’s Supreme Court, which in March upheld the lower court’s verdict.Saab and another Colombian businessman, Alvaro Pulido Vargas, were indicted in July 2019 in U.S. federal court in Miami for allegedly joining in a bribery scheme from late 2011 through at least September 2015, according to a U.S. Justice Department news release.The men allegedly laundered approximately $350 million from bank accounts in Venezuela “to and through bank accounts located in the United States,” the Justice Department said.This report originated in VOA’s Portuguese Service.
 
…

A powerful 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck southern Mexico late Tuesday near the beach resort of Acapulco, in Guerrero state, leaving at least one person dead. Guerrero state governor Hector Astudillo told a local television a man was struck by a falling utility pole in the nearby city of Coyuca de Benitez. The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake had a preliminary magnitude of 7.0 and was centered 17 kilometers northeast of the resort city of Acapulco, in Guerrero state. In a video message, Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said there were no reports of major damages in Guerrero, or elsewhere in the region, including Oaxaca, and Mexico City, where people were running into the streets when buildings began to sway. Mexico’s National Civil Defense said it was conducting reviews in 10 states, but had not received reports of victims nor serious damage.    One of the deadliest earthquakes to strike Mexico occurred off the Michoacán coast on September 19, 1985, killing 10,000 and causing catastrophic damage in the region, including Mexico City. Some information for this report came from the Associated Press. 
…

At least 17 patients died after floods swept through a hospital in central Mexico, disrupting the power supply and oxygen therapy, authorities said Tuesday.   The facility in the town of Tula in Hidalgo state was inundated after a river overflowed following heavy rain, the government said on Twitter.   “In this honorable job there are good, very good, bad and very bad days; today is one of the latter days,” President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador tweeted. “I am very saddened by the death of 17 hospital patients,” he added.   The hospital was flooded in a matter of minutes, and a power cut disrupted oxygen treatment, said Zoe Robledo, general director of the Mexican Institute of Social Security, which operates the facility. The rest of the 56 patients were reported to have been taken to other hospitals.   According to Mexican media, the victims included COVID-19 patients who needed oxygen therapy to stay alive. Images showed medical personnel pushing patients’ stretchers through the water.   The government deployed the military as well as water and electricity board workers to deal with the fallout in Tula, which bore the brunt of heavy rains that have drenched swathes of Mexico. Two people died in Ecatepec, a suburb of Mexico City where flooding turned streets into rivers, officials said. “A lot of water has fallen throughout the Valley of Mexico (where the capital is located) and it will continue to rain,” Lopez Obrador warned. “People living in low-lying areas, for now, move to shelters or high places with family or friends,” he said. 
…

Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro got a rousing reception from tens of thousands of people gathered in the capital Tuesday in an Independence Day show of support for the right-wing leader embroiled in a feud with the country’s Supreme Court. Bolsonaro, in an address inaudible to many in the crowd far from the loudspeakers, lashed out at the high court and said the nation can no longer accept what he characterized as political imprisonments — a reference to arrests ordered by Justice Alexandre de Moraes.  He warned that the court could “suffer what we don’t want.” The crowd began chanting, “Alexandre out!” His speech followed a helicopter flyover, with those on the ground seized with euphoria at the sight. They shouted, “Legend!” and “I authorize!” — a slogan widely understood as blanket approval of his methods. Some carried banners calling for military intervention to secure Bolsonaro’s hold on power. Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro delivers a speech during a demonstration in his support in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on September 7, 2021, on Brazil’s Independence Day. – Fighting record-low poll numbers, a weakening economy and a judiciary he says is…Bolsonaro has called on the Senate to impeach de Moraes, who has jailed several of the president’s supporters for allegedly financing, organizing or inciting violence or disseminating false information. In Sao Paulo, where the president was scheduled to speak in the afternoon, Bolsonaro supporters crammed into the broad Avenue Paulista downtown for a significantly larger rally than the one in Brasilia, while in Rio de Janeiro, they gathered on the road alongside Copacabana Beach. All three cities also featured smaller protests against the president.  Bolsonaro spent almost two months calling on supporters to take part in rallies across the country on Independence Day that could show his continuing political appeal despite slumping poll ratings and a string of setbacks. Critics feared the demonstrations could take a violent turn. Some said they were afraid Bolsonaro could be preparing a tropical version of the January 6 riot in Washington, where supporters of President Donald Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol alleging he had been robbed of a reelection victory.  Like Trump, Bolsonaro was elected on a pledge to go after a corrupt, entrenched political class. He has also said he might reject the 2022 election results if he loses. Along Brasilia’s esplanade, there was a festive mood, with cold drinks and the scent of grilled meat.  At least 100 military police with riot shields stood in front of Congress, and several dozen formed two lines behind barricades on the road leading to the Supreme Court. At least twice, groups of demonstrators tried to get past the barriers, but officers repelled them with pepper spray.  About 10,000 officers were scattered around the area for the demonstrations, security officials said. Regina Pontes, 53, stood atop a flatbed that advanced toward the police barriers. She said the Brazilian people have every right to enter the area. “You can’t close the door to keep the owner out,” she said. The world’s second-highest COVID-19 death toll, a drumbeat of accusations of wrongdoing in the government’s handling of the pandemic, and surging inflation have weighed on Bolsonaro’s approval ratings. Polls show his nemesis, former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, could trounce him in a runoff if he enters the race.  Tuesday’s demonstrations “may show that he has millions of people who are ready to stand up and be with him, even when Brazil’s economy is in a bad situation, inflation near 10%, the pandemic and all that,” said Thomas Traumann, a political analyst. “If Bolsonaro feels he has the support of millions of Brazilians, he will go further in his challenging of the Supreme Court,” Traumann added. Bolsonaro’s clash with the Supreme Court has raised fears among his critics, given his frequently expressed nostalgia for the nation’s past military dictatorship. On the eve of Tuesday’s protest, he signed a provisional measure sharply limiting social media platforms’ ability to remove content, restrict its spread or block accounts. A 69-year-old farmer from Minas Gerais state, Clever Greco, came to Brasilia with a group of more than 1,000 others. He said Brazil’s conservatives back Bolsonaro’s call for the removal of two Supreme Court justices by peaceful means. But Greco also likened his trip to deploying for war. “I don’t know what day I’ll go back. I’m prepared to give my blood, if needed,” Greco said. “We’re no longer asking; the people are ordering.”  The U.S. Embassy in Brasilia last week warned Americans to steer clear of the protests. “The risk (that) we see scenes of violence and an institutional crisis that’s unprecedented in Brazil’s recent history still remains and is considerable,” said Paulo Calmon, a political science professor at the University of Brasilia. 
…

El Salvador became the first country to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender Tuesday, but the rollout stumbled in its first hours and President Nayib Bukele said the digital wallet used for transactions was not functioning. For part of the morning, El Salvador’s president became tech support for a nation stepping into the world of cryptocurrency. Bukele marshaled his Twitter account — with more than 2.8 million followers — to walk users through what was happening.  Bukele explained that the digital wallet Chivo had been disconnected while server capacity was increased.  The president said it was a relatively simple problem. “We prefer to correct it before we connect it again,” Bukele said. He encouraged followers to download the app and leave comments about how it was going. Meanwhile, the value of Bitcoin plummeted early Tuesday, dropping from more than $52,000 per coin to $42,000, before recovering about half of that loss — an example of the volatility that worries many. Government employees open the customer service area of a Chivo digital wallet machine, which exchanges cash for Bitcoin cryptocurrency, at Las Americas Square in San Salvador, El Salvador, September 7, 2021.The government has promised to install 200 Chivo automatic tellers and 50 Bitcoin attention centers. The Associated Press visited one of the automatic tellers in San Salvador’s historic center, where attendants waited to help citizens, who initially didn’t show much interest.  Asked if he had downloaded the Chivo app, Emanuel Ceballos said he had not. “I don’t know if I’m going to do it. I still have doubts about using that currency.” José Martín Tenorio said he was interested in Bitcoin but had not downloaded the app, either. “I’m running to work. Maybe at home tonight.” In Santa Tecla, a San Salvador suburb, young attendants were waiting to assist people at a help center. Denis Rivera arrived with a friend because they had been trying to download the digital wallet app without success.  He said he didn’t understand why some people “have been scandalized” by Bitcoin. “We’ve been using debit and credit cards for years, and it’s the same electronic money,” he said. He was in favor of it and planned to use the $30 offered by the government as an incentive to try it out. “I’m going to see how efficient it is and practical it can be, and based on that, decide if I keep using it or not.”  Miguel Menjivar, left, sells bread on a street in San Salvador, El Salvador, before sunrise September 7, 2021, on the day all businesses have to accept payments in Bitcoin, except those lacking the technology to do so.José Luis Hernández, owner of a barbershop in the area, came looking for information. “I have a small business and I want to know how to use the application and how are the rates and all of that,” Hernández said. AP confirmed that at least three international fast food chain restaurants were accepting bitcoin payments through the Chivo digital wallet.  David Gerard, author of “Attack of the 50 Foot Blockchain,” said Tuesday’s Bitcoin volatility likely had little to nothing to do with El Salvador. “My first guess was shenanigans, because it’s always shenanigans,” Gerard said via email. “Bitcoin basically doesn’t respond to market forces or regulatory announcements,” Gerard said. “That sort of price pattern, where it crashes hugely in minutes then goes back up again, is usually one of the big guys burning the margin traders.” Because Bitcoin is so thinly traded, it could also have been a big holder making a large sale to have cash, thus sending the market for a ride, Gerard said. Three face-to-face public opinion surveys performed recently showed that most Salvadorans did not agree with the government’s decision to make Bitcoin legal currency. Bitcoin joins the U.S. dollar as El Salvador’s official currencies. In June, the Legislative Assembly enacted the Bitcoin law, and the Central American Bank for Economic Integration is providing the government with technical assistance. The law says that Bitcoin can be used for any transaction, and any business with the technological capacity to do so must accept payment in the cryptocurrency. The government will back Bitcoin with a $150 million fund. To incentivize Salvadorans to use it, the government offered $30 worth of credit to those who use Chivo. Critics have warned that the currency’s lack of transparency could attract increased criminal activity to the country, and its wild swings in value could quickly wipe out users’ savings. Opposition groups marched in El Salvador to demand the derogation of the law that allows Bitcoin use.  Bukele has said the cryptocurrency — originally created to operate outside government-controlled financial systems — would help attract investment and save Salvadorans money when they transfer earnings in the United States back home to relatives in El Salvador. But its use would be voluntary. 
…

Mexico’s Supreme Court unanimously ruled on Tuesday that penalizing abortion is unconstitutional, a major victory for advocates of women’s health and human rights, just as parts of the United States enact tougher laws against the practice.The court ruling in the majority Roman Catholic nation follows moves to decriminalize abortion at the state level, although most of the country still has tough laws in place against women terminating their pregnancy early.”This is a historic step for the rights of women,” said Supreme Court Justice Luis Maria Aguilar.A number of U.S. states have recently taken steps to restrict women’s access to abortion, particularly Texas, which last week enacted the strictest anti-abortion law in the country after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to intervene.The Mexican ruling opens the door to the possibility for the release of women incarcerated for having had abortions. It also could lead to U.S. women in states such as Texas deciding to travel south of the border to terminate their pregnancies. In July, the state of Veracruz became just the fourth of Mexico’s 32 regions to decriminalize abortion.
…