In a troubling announcement this week, the Catholic Church has closed a human rights office that oversees an estimated 80 percent of documents regarding human rights abuses in El Salvador.
Politicians from both parties have suggested that a shutdown would prevent the State Department from handling passport and visa applications, but State Department spokesman John Gerlach said consular services wouldn't be impacted because they're funded through processing fees, not through congressional appropriations.
A crucial test for Peña Nieto might come as soon as mid-October, with lawmakers expected to vote in the coming weeks on his bid to rewrite energy laws and jolt the sagging national oil company, Pemex.
The Nicaraguan National Zoo is releasing tapirs to increase their numbers in the wild, but conservationists worry about threats to the animals from hunters.
Heatwaves, floods, droughts and rising seas are among the threats that will intensify through warming, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said in a report released in Stockholm.
Samantha Lewthwaite, the daughter of a British soldier, was married to Jamaica-born Germaine Lindsay, who like her was a Muslim convert and one of the four perpetrators of the July 7, 2005 attacks on London's transport network, which killed 26 people.
