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Carlos Alcaraz has withdrawn from the 2026 Cincinnati Open as he continues to recover from the wrist injury that has kept him away from competition since April. The ATP Tour confirmed the decision Tuesday, ending hopes that the defending champion would make his long-awaited return at the Masters 1000 tournament in Ohio. Alcaraz had entered Cincinnati as part of a planned comeback ahead of the US Open. Tournament organizers initially included him among a field led by Jannik Sinner, Alexander Zverev, Novak Djokovic, Taylor Fritz and Ben Shelton. However, the 23-year-old Spaniard has not recovered sufficiently to compete in the Cincinnati main draw, which begins August 13. “We know Carlos is doing everything he can to get back to playing tournaments as soon as possible,” tournament director Bob Moran said in a statement. The withdrawal extends an absence that began at the Barcelona Open in April. Alcaraz has since missed several of the biggest tournaments on the calendar, inclu...

A powerful eruption of Guatemala’s Fuego Volcano has forced authorities to evacuate at least 1,700 residents from areas near the crater and declare the highest alert level Tuesday in zones exposed to falling ash. Fuego, considered the most active volcano in Central America and located near the capital, entered an eruptive phase Monday morning. Its activity intensified overnight into Tuesday, with streams of lava flowing down its slopes and enormous columns of gas and ash rising into the sky. “The volcano is going through one of its most critical explosive phases,” producing mudflows, incandescent rocks, gases and ash, said Edwin Rojas, director of the Institute of Volcanology, known as Insivumeh. Guatemala’s National Coordinator for Disaster Reduction, Conred, began evacuating communities near the volcano Monday evening and declared an orange danger alert nationwide. On Tuesday, the agency raised the alert to red in the departments of Sacatepéquez, Chimaltenango and Escuintla,...

One longtime foreign resident of Costa Rica could buy a house or a condominium outright tomorrow. He has the cash, he has been here for decades, and he still rents the same apartment he has rented for years and he has no plans to change that. His reasoning is worth hearing before you sign anything, because the instinct most newcomers arrive with — buy early, buy fast, get it settled — is the expensive instinct if you turn out to be wrong about where you want to live. He gives three reasons. The first is that Costa Rica is not one place. The dry heat of Guanacaste, the green wall of the South Pacific around Uvita and Ojochal, the Caribbean side, the Central Valley — these are different countries as far as your daily life is concerned, and the region that suits you in year one may not suit you in year five. He spends the low season at the beach, when the crowds are gone and prices drop, and returns to the Central Valley for the high season, when the weather is better and the air...

Costa Rica’s Comptroller General has ordered the country’s national water utility and its public services regulator to identify customers who were billed more than they should have been for water, sewer and hydrant service, and to build a mechanism to pay them back. An audit released today put the improper charges at roughly ₡65.4 billion, about $144 million at the rate of ₡453.59 to the dollar. The report concluded that our Instituto Costarricense de Acueductos y Alcantarillados ( AyA ) and the Autoridad Reguladora de los Servicios Públicos ( Aresep ) failed broadly to comply with the legal, technical and control framework that governs how rates are set. The findings reach into how tariffs are updated, how the money they raise is supervised, how the value of infrastructure is calculated, and whether the five services AyA bills for — drinking water, sewerage, hydrants, protection of water resources and related services — can be sustained. Aresep is the same regulator that sets fue...

Serena and Venus Williams will play doubles together for the first time since 2022 after the Cincinnati Open handed the sisters a wildcard into its women’s doubles draw. Venus also received a singles wildcard, alongside Sloane Stephens, Taylor Townsend, Darja Vidmanova, Elvina Kalieva, Caroline Dolehide and Lois Boisson, for the tournament running Aug. 8 to 23 in Mason, Ohio. The pairing marks the first time the sisters will compete as a team in Cincinnati. Together they have won 14 major doubles titles and three Olympic gold medals, and their last doubles appearance came at the 2022 US Open, a defeat to Czech pair Lucie Hradecka and Linda Noskova in the tournament Serena described at the time as her step away from the sport. Serena, 44, ended that absence this summer. She played doubles at Queen’s Club and at the Berlin Open, without Venus on either occasion, before returning to singles at Wimbledon. Her first-round loss there to 20-year-old Australian Maya Joint...

President Laura Fernández attended Sunday’s solemn Mass for the Virgen de los Ángeles in Cartago, the first Costa Rican head of state to take part in the ceremony since 2023, and sat through a homily in which the officiating bishop named violence, crime, drug trafficking, corruption and poverty as problems the country could no longer afford to look past. The Eucharist began at 9 a.m. on the plaza in front of the shrine and was presided over by Monsignor Mario Enrique Quirós Quirós, bishop of Cartago, with the homily delivered by Monsignor José Manuel Garita Herrera, bishop of Ciudad Quesada. Fernández arrived with her husband, Jeffry Umaña, and was seated to one side of the altar alongside representatives of the country’s supreme powers. Her attendance had been confirmed in advance by Luis Esteban Fernández, vicar and spokesman for the Basílica de Nuestra Señora de los Ángeles. Garita told the congregation that the nation was living through a moment demanding respo...

Drivers in Costa Rica will soon pay substantially less for super gasoline and diesel after regulators approved fuel-price reductions of up to ₡79 per liter. The Public Services Regulatory Authority ( Aresep ), approved the changes on Friday, July 31. The new prices will take effect the day after the resolution is published in the official government newspaper, La Gaceta. Super gasoline will fall by ₡55, from ₡756 to ₡701 per liter. Diesel will receive the largest reduction, dropping by ₡79 from ₡683 to ₡604 per liter. Regular gasoline will remain unchanged at ₡755 per liter. The unusual price structure means super gasoline will cost ₡54 less per liter than regular once the adjustment takes effect. Drivers should still follow the octane recommendation in their vehicle’s owner manual rather than choosing fuel based only on price. The reductions will produce noticeable savings for motorists and businesses that rely on diesel vehicles. Filling a 50-liter tank, equivalent to about ...

If you are flying out of San José today, leave for the airport far earlier than you normally would. A failure in the judicial branch computer systems that immigration officers depend on has forced the San Jose Airport into manual passport processing, and the backlog has already cost travelers their flights. The Dirección General de Migración y Extranjería confirmed on Saturday afternoon that the disruption forced the outright cancellation of one flight. A further 36 passengers missed a JetBlue departure. The problem was first reported around midday and worsened as the afternoon went on, with long lines forming inside the terminal while officers fell back on the physical entry and exit card protocol. In case you are wondering, here is why that slows everything down. When you pass through immigration on your way in or out of Costa Rica, the officer does not simply stamp your passport. Your details are run against databases held by the Poder Judicial, which flag court-ordered tra...

Chris Hemsworth has shared frightening footage from a small-plane flight during his family vacation in Costa Rica, showing lightning flashing outside the aircraft as heavy turbulence shakes the cabin. The sequence appears in a five-minute video posted on the Australian actor’s YouTube channel. Hemsworth films the cockpit and dark storm clouds before several large flashes illuminate the sky around the aircraft. He then turns the camera toward himself with a visibly alarmed expression. Text added to the video describes the experience as a “life-threatening plane ride,” while Hemsworth called it a “crazy plane ride through the lightning” in the video description. The aircraft landed safely, and no injuries were reported. Hemsworth did not identify the airline, flight operator, route or type of aircraft involved. The footage also does not make clear whether his wife, Spanish actress Elsa Pataky, or their three children were aboard during the stormy flight. They appear throughout ...

When people think about buying or selling property in Costa Rica today, they often picture property portals, real estate agents, Realtors and international buyers searching online for their dream home. But that isn’t how Costa Rica built its property market. For generations, Costa Ricans sold property through their communities. A simple “Se Vende” sign outside the gate. A conversation with a neighbour. A recommendation from a friend. Trusted lawyers handling the legal side of the sale. It wasn’t unusual. It was simply the Costa Rican way. As Costa Rica became one of the world’s most desirable places to live, retire and invest, the property market naturally evolved. International buyers needed guidance through an unfamiliar legal process, language and culture, and real estate agents and Realtors became an important part of helping people buy property in Costa Rica with confidence. For many homeowners, that remains exactly the right choice. But somewhere along the wa...

If you have a Guanacaste trip on the calendar, the update that landed yesterday changes what you pack, not whether you go. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention refreshed its Costa Rica chikungunya notice on July 30, keeping it in place and describing an outbreak in northwest Costa Rica. The advice attached to it is one line long: protect yourself by preventing mosquito bites. The designation itself has not moved. It has been at Level 2 since the U.S. Embassy issued its own alert in mid-July, and it is still there. What a refresh signals is that the agency looked again and left the rung where it was. Understanding that rung is the useful part, because the number does a lot of work in headlines and almost none in practice. Level 2 is what the agency labels Practice Enhanced Precautions. It is the second rung on a four-step ladder. Level 3 asks travelers to reconsider nonessential trips. Level 4 tells them to stay away. Level 2 does neither. It does not restrict t...

A shell picked up on a beach walk, a piece of coral, a seed pod, a carved trinket bought from a roadside stand — any of them can stop you at the airport and, in some cases, put your name into a criminal file before you fly home. Costa Rican authorities have started a public information campaign, “What You Carry,” aimed squarely at travelers who pack natural objects without realizing the law treats them as protected wildlife. The campaign is being run by the Judiciary, with the Prosecutor’s Office, forensic specialists from the Judicial Investigation Agency ( OIJ ) and airport operator Aeris taking part. Campaign material is set to appear at airports, at tourist destinations around the country and online. According to the Judiciary, foreign visitors are regularly stopped on their way out of Costa Rica carrying flora or fauna they did not know was restricted. The list is broader than most people expect. Shells, snail shells, coral, sand dollars, starfish, beach...

More than 500 people and organizations, among them three former presidents of Costa Rica and Panama, have signed a public statement demanding that the Costa Rican state guarantee decent living, working and social protection conditions for the Ngäbe-Buglé workers who pick coffee each year. The Kioscos Socioambientales program at the University of Costa Rica, which coordinated the effort, reported 512 signatures in all. They include roughly a hundred Indigenous, labor, community, feminist, coastal, environmental and social organizations from Costa Rica and Panama, along with academics, artists and professionals. Former Costa Rican presidents Abel Pacheco de la Espriella and Laura Chinchilla Miranda signed, as did former Panamanian president Ricardo de la Espriella Toral, who governed from 1982 to 1984. Writer Ana Cristina Rossi Lara, musician Manuel Obregón López and the bands Malpaís, Sonámbulo Psicotropical and Un Rojo Reggae Band are also among the signatories. The state...

Costa Rica’s Central Bank has lowered its economic growth forecast for 2026 as weaker exports, slower household demand and the expected effects of El Niño increase pressure on agriculture, electricity generation and consumer prices. The bank now expects the Costa Rican economy to grow 3.4% this year, down from the 3.5% forecast issued in April and the 3.8% projected in January. Growth is expected to reach 3.5% in 2027, also one-tenth of a percentage point below the previous estimate. The revision does not point to a recession, but it confirms that the economy is losing momentum after expanding 4.6% in 2025. Economic growth slowed from 4% during the first quarter of this year to 3.4% in the second quarter. Household spending and construction remain the main sources of support. Household consumption is forecast to grow 2.9% in 2026, while investment in buildings, equipment and other fixed assets is expected to rise 5.3%. Construction grew 8.9% year over year during the second ...

Boston Scientific has confirmed that its Costa Rican operation forms part of a global restructuring program that sets aside as much as $300 million for employee termination benefits, though the company has not disclosed how many workers it will cut in Costa Rica, in which of its local sites, or on what timeline. The medical device manufacturer’s board of directors approved the plan, which the company calls its 2026 Restructuring Plan, on July 21. It was disclosed publicly six days later in a Form 8-K filing with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. The filing estimates total pre-tax charges of between $700 million and $800 million, broken down into $300 million to $350 million to move production lines between facilities, $275 million to $300 million in employee termination benefits, and $125 million to $150 million in other costs including consulting fees, contract cancellations, program management and asset write-offs. Between $600 million and $700 milli...

If you need to move between San José and Cartago this weekend, the train just became the easiest way to do it, and the highway is about to become the hardest. Passenger service on the Cartago line will run without a break for 27 hours, starting at 9 a.m. on Saturday, August 1, and ending at midday on Sunday, August 2. Trains leave both ends of the line — the central station in Cartago and the Atlántico station in San José — once an hour from 9 a.m. until 7 p.m. After 8 p.m. the frequency tightens to every 35 minutes and stays there all night and through Sunday morning. The last train in each direction leaves at 11:50 a.m. on Sunday, and nothing runs after that, so if you are relying on the train to get home Sunday, treat late morning as your deadline rather than your cushion. The overnight frequency is the point of the whole operation. Pilgrims walk to the Basílica de Nuestra Señora de los Ángeles through the night and finish at all hours, and almost none of them want to walk ...

A new push of Saharan dust is expected to spread across Costa Rica this week, bringing hazy skies, reduced visibility and poorer air quality, with Thursday and Friday forecast to be the most difficult days. The dust will affect nearly all of Costa Rica, although higher concentrations are expected in Alajuela, western parts of the Central Valley and some areas of Cartago. Residents may notice a pale or milky appearance in the sky known as calima, caused by fine particles suspended in the atmosphere. Visibility over mountains and other distant landmarks could also become noticeably worse. The conditions are expected to become more apparent beginning Wednesday before reaching their strongest point on Thursday, July 30, and Friday, July 31. Air quality should begin improving Saturday as the dust moves north toward other parts of Central America and Mexico. People with asthma, allergies and other respiratory conditions face the greatest risk. Children and older adults should also r...