Costa Rica Legislative Assembly

Street cats living at the Legislative Assembly in downtown San José are going to be pretty jumpy starting Friday evening.

Ever wonder what Costa Rican lawmakers actually accomplish? Here's a look at the first six months of the current Legislative Assembly, a data analysis project aimed at promoting public access to information, brought to you by Ojo al Voto.

Opposition lawmakers expressed a mix of outrage and approval Monday afternoon at the 100-day report presented by President Luis Guillermo Solís last week. Many lawmakers who opined about the president’s report agreed that any guilty parties should be punished, but they urged the president to provide more concrete proposals to address the problems he identified while speaking last Thursday at San José's Teatro Melico Salazar.

Only a few manatees remain in Costa Rica's rivers. In an effort to spread awareness and save the endangered aquatic mammal, conservationists and a group of children from Caribbean province of Limón are pushing to make the sea cow the country's national marine mammal.

Legislative Assembly President Henry Mora on Monday evening asked the legislative appointments commission to immediately start the process of selecting candidates for ombudsman following the resignation Monday of Ofelia Taitelbaum.

With it's publication in the official government newspaper La Gaceta, Costa Rica's dog-fighting ban went into effect last week. The new law clarifies dog fighting as a criminal offense and imposes stricter penalties on those caught organizing fighting rings.

For the second time in a month, Citizen Action Party (PAC) members of the Legislative Assembly seem ready to trade away the interests of LGBT Costa Ricans in order to secure votes for something they more desire.