Central America in Minutes

Episode 74: Costa Rican authorities find 200 migrants deported there from the U.S. in 2025 were subject to de facto deprivation of liberty, passport retention, discrimination, and physical injury due to the prolonged use of shackles.

Despite a constitutional mandate to promote home ownership, El Salvador has a shortage of around 400,000 homes, with many living in precarious housing called mesones.

In Panama, hundreds protest the reop...

Episode 73: One year after her arrest by the Salvadoran regime, Ruth López’s family, international organizations, and groups in exile call for her release and for information on her health.

Audio published by Hondurasgate and amplified by international media allege an international plot in favor of Juan Orlando Hernández, but skip journalistic due diligence.

Guatemala’s new attorney general ends the eight-year tenure of Consuelo Porr...

Episode 72: Laura Fernández is sworn in as president of Costa Rica, promising an El Salvador-style crackdown on crime. The Israeli government says Costa Rica is willing to open an embassy in Jerusalem. r

U.N. experts demand proof of life for Nicaraguan Indigenous leader and political prisoner Brooklyn Rivera. They denounce forced disappearances, inhumane conditions, and dozens of remaining political prisoners under the Ortega-Murill...

Episode 71: Guatemalan President Bernardo Arévalo names Gabriel García Luna, a career judicial official working for the Executive, as attorney general. After years of selective justice, he will take office May 17 barring legal challenges.

In Guatemala, the murder of journalist Carlos Humberto Cal Ical draws calls for a swift investigation and end to impunity, amid growing threats to the press from governments and criminal groups ali...

Episode 70: El Salvador begins a mass trial of 486 alleged MS-13 members following a dramatic rewriting of judicial procedure. The men will be tried for collective, not individual crimes. New penalties of life in prison will take effect on Sunday.

After months of avoiding direct confrontation with Washington, Ortega calls Trump “mentally deranged” just as new U.S. sanctions are imposed on his inner circle for human rights abuses and...

Episode 69: Amid major strain on the public health system, Bukele announces Google’s A.I. system Gemini will help oversee case loads for chronic illnesses. He is billing El Salvador as “the world’s premier testbed for real-world A.I. deployment.”

In Guatemala, Plaza Pública reports that the U.S. Embassy tried to influence the elections of constitutional magistrates. Two lobbying groups work against President Bernardo Arévalo in Trum...

Episode 68: On Wednesday, former president Juan Orlando Hernández claimed a U.S. appeals court declared him “innocent” of drug trafficking charges. But the court in fact dismissed his appeal because Trump’s November 2025 pardon had made it a moot point.

Costa Rican President-elect Laura Fernández has announced her first decrees in May. Mining rights are a priority, and she’ll set the agenda for three months in the legislature. Her f...

Episode 67: International human rights experts condemn U.S. boat strikes against civilians accused of drug trafficking. To date, at least 163 people have been killed and no evidence of drug smuggling has been provided in any of the attacks.

Costa Rica joins almost all governments in Central America to sign migration agreements to receive third-country nationals deported from the United States. Costa Rica commits to receiving 25 thir...

SPECIAL, Episode 66: I always imagined the end of the maras playing out differently. Since I am a pathological romantic, I imagined people in the street in some sort of march with drums and tears of joy. Or going to leave flowers at a monument for the victims of so much darkness… But no.

This special episode shares an audio column by El Faro special investigations reporter Carlos Martínez, translated by William Palomo from

Episode 65: With crimes against humanity in El Salvador on full international display, Bukele denounces the reports as a “coordinated” conspiracy. Trump’s pick as ambassador to El Salvador, former DHS official Troy Edgar, goes before the Senate.

China’s future in Honduras hangs in the balance with the new Trump-backed president, Nasry Asfura. In his election campaign, he promised to restore relations with Taiwan, which were cut in 2...

Episode 64: The Inter-American Court of Human Rights condemned the state of Honduras for trying to uproot the Afro-Indigenous Garifuna community from Cayos Cochinos at the behest of a tourism conglomerate and a European TV spinoff of Survivor.

Guatemalan political elites battle over a top court tainted by allegations of corruption and insider dealing. With all five seats up for grabs this week, both Arévalo and his enemies cl...

Episode 63: A federal judge denounces intimidation and death threats on social media after suspending Trump’s rollback of TPS for Haiti. An appeals court allows Trump to cancel the program for Honduras, Nicaragua, and Nepal as litigation continues.

In Guatemala, an internationally sanctioned judge annuls the 1993 arrest warrant for coup president Jorge Serrano Elías, a fugitive in Panama. The same judge oversees terrorism charges ag...

Episode 62: U.N. experts tie internationally sanctioned Guatemalan AG Consuelo Porras to an illegal adoption scheme during the armed conflict. They make the allegations public on the same day she runs for constitutional magistrate.

The Bukele-controlled Assembly in El Salvador claims it is running a 2026 “austerity” budget for legislative operations, but is keeping line items under lock and key. 

After Trump’s invasion of Venezuela, ...

Episode 61: Costa Rican authorities arrest the fifth suspect in the murder of prominent Nicaraguan exile Roberto Samcam, in a brazen case underscoring fear and insecurity for refugees in Costa Rica. Some have decided to leave the country.

A Guatemalan court orders —yet again— the release on house arrest of newspaperman Jose Rubén Zamora in the second of two cases that had kept him in prison awaiting retrial on internationally condem...

CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 60: The Trump administration sends mixed signals to Nicaragua on trade, sanctions, and anti-narcotics while the Ortega-Murillo regime signs new commercial agreements with Russia and China.

Costa Rican President-elect Laura Fernández wins the election by sweeping margin and promises continuity with the Rodrigo Chaves administration’s agenda. She says she will consider a state of exception modeled after...

CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 59: In exchange for select exemption from Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs, Bukele signs a trade deal promising the U.S. mining and energy access and calling on El Salvador to co-sign Trump’s trade sanctions.

In Honduras, Tito Asfura takes office on promises to cut back the state, while the National Party proposes Bible readings in schools. Honduras asks to return to a World Bank forum to resolve disp...

CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 58: UCR pollsters place Laura Fernández, Minister of the Presidency under Rodrigo Chaves, with 40% of the vote. If that lead holds on February 1, Chaves’ “heir” will win the presidency outright without a runoff.

Days before the transfer of power in Honduras, the National Party takes the reins of Congress and President-elect Tito Asfura meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The National...

CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 57: Honduran President Xiomara Castro orders a controversial last-second electoral recount and calls for dialogue with Trump. Meanwhile, President-elect Tito Asfura meets with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the Israeli ambassador in Washington.

Before the February 1 election iBefore the February 1 election in Costa Rica, the electoral tribunal rejects a request to prevent Bukele from attending the...

CENTRAL AMERICA IN MINUTES, Ep. 56: After the U.S. invasion of Venezuela, the Nicaraguan dictatorship tightens state surveillance, Nayib Bukele mocks Maduro to settle a score, and Panama calls for the Venezuelan opposition to be put in charge.

The White House declares a “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine, shaking up its envoys to Central America. Trump taps a billionaire couple who donated to his 2020 campaign for Costa Rica a...