The Tico Times

Costa Rica's offense produced another goalless game in a 1-0 loss to South Korea in Los Angeles on Saturday. Since qualifying for the World Cup last October, Costa Rica has been shut out in all three of its international friendlies in preparation for Brazil.

More than two decades after the Cold War, during which the United States backed anti-communist military rulers and pushed free-market policies in Latin America, conservative governments have virtually disappeared from the region.

Before the Europeans arrived in the Americas on the hunt for gold, the region's indigenous people used money that literally grew on trees. The...

Johnny Araya, the ruling National Liberation Party's candidate for president and a poll leader heading into the Feb. 2 vote, promised Sunday to lead an administration with a "social face" if elected. Araya made the statement during a San José rally to wrap up his campaign.

At the height of the dry season, Amanda Black awoke in her hotel room to another radiant blue sky. She started the morning of Feb. 28, 2013, walking Jacó beach on Costa Rica’s central Pacific coast with her father and sister, followed by a dip in the hotel pool. At 10 a.m., a beautician showed up to do her makeup, and the photographer arrived an hour later. At noon, Black met her extended family in the lobby of the Hotel Club del Mar, and they all boarded a bus.

Another mass shooting has taken place in the the United States. This time in Columbia, Md., at a shopping mall just outside of Baltimore.

Even for a children’s book, “The Manatee’s Big Day” (Zona Tropical Press) is goofy. For the first few pages, Erin Van Rheenen’s animal adventure looks like a story of zoological teamwork: There’s a shark in the jungles of Tortuguero on Costa Rica's northern Caribbean coast, and the animals are all freaked out. Instead of fearing each other, the rival species band together against their common enemy.

Before she begins her 1,100-kilometer swim, Renate Herberger always sings a song to the African goddess Yemaya, who watches over the sea. A self-described Pagan, Herberger asks Yemaya for permission to enter the endless Pacific. On Monday, Jan. 27, she will sing that song again.

Costa Rica's most popular soccer club had a grand unveiling of their new uniforms and clothing line.

Costa Rica's Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court ordered the Judicial Investigation Police – accused of spying – to allow the daily Diario Extra access to public information relevant to the case and to not to take any action against the newspaper. A court spokeswoman, Vanilly Cantillo, communicated the information in a Friday statement.