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An internal audit at Costa Rica’s National Roadway Council ( Conavi ) has warned that construction work on the Barranca-Limonal highway disrupted natural overhead routes used by wildlife, potentially leaving animals more exposed to traffic. Conavi’s executive director, Mauricio Sojo, disputed the audit’s description of what happened. He said the natural crossings were not deliberately removed but fell during earthmoving work and were later restored. The warning appears in preventive services report signed on April 14, 2026. It followed a March 5 inspection involving Conavi auditors and the project’s environmental manager. During the visit, the group found that natural overhead wildlife crossings connecting vegetation on opposite sides of the highway had been removed, according to the report. The affected area was between the Aranjuez River and the main entrance to Judas de Chomes, where crews were cutting trees and clearing the highway right-of-way. The environmental manager t...

More than 180 nurses walked off the job at Hospital México this morning after negotiations between their union and the Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social ended without agreement, disrupting care in the hospital’s inpatient wards. In total, 181 of the 275 nurses scheduled for the first shift joined the action, close to two-thirds of the staff rostered for that period. Hospital officials said the effect was concentrated in hospitalization areas, where coverage fell furthest below normal levels. The walkout followed months of talks that produced no resolution. The Sindicato Nacional de Enfermería y Afines, known as SINAE, says it has been trying since November 2025 to open a formal negotiating table with hospital management over conditions in the nursing service, a period the union puts at roughly nine months. At the center of the dispute is what the union describes as a shortage of nurses assigned to direct patient care. SINAE estimates the hospital is short roughly 18 pro...

When money is the subject, I am as old school as anybody. Cash is king in my world. The thrill, the feel of a stack of banknotes will always beat looking at a set of digits on my phone screen. Like precious metals, classic cars and gemstones, paper currency is tangible; You can touch it, hold it, photograph it fanned out in your hand like some young dude on his way to the pawn shop to get his gold chain out of hock. When it comes to greenbacks– US dollars– I am clearly part of a vanishing breed. Only about ten percent of the US dollar supply is represented in cash and coins. The rest is numbers on a screen, digital transactions accessed in a few seconds, no counting of change needed. Our dominant method of payment is as common worldwide as locally. India, Brazil and China – three of the major BRICS countries– are also the top three in percent of digital transactions. As for Costa Rica, the number is around thirty percent of transactions still done with cash, which is the secto...

Serena and Venus Williams take the court together tonight at the Cincinnati Open, and if you want to watch it from Costa Rica, you have two realistic options.The match starts at 5 p.m. Costa Rica time on Grandstand Court. That is 7 p.m. on the U.S. East Coast, where the tournament is played. Doubles matches follow whatever is scheduled ahead of them, so treat that as the earliest possible start rather than a guarantee. If the preceding match runs long, yours starts late. Your first option is Disney+ on the Premium plan, which carries every match from the tournament in this region. Your second is ESPN, which picks up selected matches across its channels. Disney+ is the safer choice tonight. ESPN chooses which matches to televise, and a first-round doubles match is exactly the kind of thing that gets passed over for singles — even one with two of the most famous players in the sport’s history in it. Skip TennisTV. It is a common recommendation in tournament guides and it wi...

President Laura Fernández spent this morning touring flood-damaged communities in Limón province, as pressure built on her government to issue a formal emergency declaration for the Caribbean coast. Casa Presidencial released the itinerary last night and circulated an updated version at this morning The schedule ran from a shelter visit in Valle La Estrella through damaged areas in Limón, Matina and Guácimo, closing at a shelter in Guácimo in the late afternoon, and included a meeting with agency heads and the mayor of Limón. Its been reported the tour was to begin at 8:45 a.m., while the agenda circulated Monday morning listed the first stop at 9:20 a.m. The call for a declaration came yestarday afternoon from Mangell Mc Lean, a legislator with the opposition Partido Liberación Nacional who represents Limón. He said he had travelled through the province and described it as facing “a critical situation, with destroyed roads and isolated communities,” adding that he ...

Relatives of a retired military officer and his wife, who were detained a year ago in Nicaragua, demanded Saturday that the government of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo provide information about their whereabouts and health amid fears they could die in prison. Retired Colonel Carlos Brenes , 71, and his wife, Salvadora Martínez, 68, were detained last August, during police raids in the cities of Carazo and Masaya, in which several other people were also arrested, Thelma Brenes, the retired officer’s daughter, said. “They have a duty to tell us where they are, how they are doing and to return them to us alive,” Brenes said from exile. Human rights organizations and relatives of detainees who maintain a search mechanism say that as of the end of July, there were 60 political prisoners in Nicaragua, 23 of whom were considered victims of enforced disappearance. They warn that 15 are older adults, including Brenes and Martínez. Brenes’ daughter said the family fears a repeat of...