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A rise in violence and theft in downtown Cartago is changing the way merchants do business, with some closing earlier, reinforcing storefronts and watching customer traffic fade in the afternoon and evening. The concerns are centered in Cartago’s historic commercial district, near the Mercado Central, the Ruins, the old barracks area and the streets surrounding the city’s traditional shopping corridors. Merchants say robberies, armed incidents and the visible presence of unhoused people have altered routines in a city long viewed as quieter than San José. The tension grew sharply after an armed attack on January 11 left two people dead near the Convento de los Padres Capuchinos, close to the city center. Police reports said the incident involved occupants of two vehicles and ended in gunfire and a fatal crash. The victims were identified by their surnames as Aguilar, 22, and Camacho, 21. For many shopkeepers, the violence has become part of daily decision-making. Yessenia Ramírez, 5...

When you hear the word jungle spoken in reference to Costa Rica, your first thought likely strays to monkeys swinging through trees, scarlet macaws, toucans, blue morpho butterflies, and our unofficial national symbol, the sloth. But live here long enough and you may find yourself traipsing through a less appealing jungle, that of the Costa Rican bureaucracy. I have had my own misadventures over the years, having been turned away at the airport on one occasion due to a child support payment mix-up. I have also spent my share of time in lines to get papers stamped and documents authenticated. All of that is benign compared to the problems of another U.S. expat, an acquaintance who is caught in the unpredictable wheels of the apparatus while he tries in vain to get his residency. I heard the story secondhand while enjoying a couple of cold ones at a beachside cantina. My drinking buddy asked if I’d heard about our acquaintance Theo’s problem. I said I hadn’t, so my friend laid it out f...

Costa Rica’s push to place Rebeca Grynspan at the head of the United Nations moved into a more public phase this week, as the former vice president used her interactive dialogue before member states to argue that the next secretary-general must put peace back at the center of the organization and take a more active role in preventing conflicts. Her candidacy gives Costa Rica an unusual opening to project its long-standing diplomatic identity onto one of the most important jobs in multilateral politics. Grynspan is one of four declared candidates currently in the race to succeed António Guterres when his second term ends on December 31, 2026, with the next secretary-general set to begin on January 1, 2027. The other contenders are Michelle Bachelet of Chile, Rafael Grossi of Argentina, and Macky Sall of Senegal. Costa Rica formally registered Grynspan’s candidac y on March 3, presenting her as a figure with government experience, deep U.N. knowledge, and a track record in crisis nego...

As the world observes Earth Day today, Costa Rica finds itself in familiar territory: held up once again as a global example of what environmental ambition can look like in practice, while dealing with the real-world pressures that test that reputation year after year. The 2026 theme chosen by earthday.org — “Our Power, Our Planet” — emphasizes that environmental progress is sustained by the daily actions of communities, educators, workers, and families rather than by any single policy cycle. It is a message that lands naturally here. Costa Rica abolished its army in 1948 and redirected public spending toward health, education, and the environment, a decision that has underpinned decades of conservation work and made the country roughly the size of West Virginia a reference point for sustainable development far larger than its footprint. That reputation rests on hard numbers. The Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad reported earlier this year that Costa Rica closed 2025 genera...

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Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega said Monday that U.S. President Donald Trump is suffering from a mental breakdown after launching, alongside Israel, the war in the Middle East. In his most recent public appearances, Ortega had kept a more measured tone about Trump following the war unleashed on February 28 by Israeli and U.S. attacks against Iran, which has left thousands dead, mainly in Iran and Lebanon. “The war imposed in the way the current president of the United States is imposing it is typical of someone who has lost his mind and believes he can do anything, any kind of barbarity,” Ortega said. “It is a problem, we might say, of mental derangement, as we say here. He is not in his right mind,” he added during an event in Managua broadcast by pro-government media. Ortega and co-president Rosario Murillo , his wife, held a rally in the capital “for Peace and Reconciliation” to mark the 2018 opposition protests, which they say were an attempted coup backed by Washington. The 8...