NAYIB BUKELE

Many wrote the Warriors dynasty off last year. The NBA Twitter Verified crew explain why we are still very much in the middle of the Warriors dynasty.

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has started a five-day tour to four Central American countries and Cuba by lashing out at the U.S. government.

Five human rights groups say there have been complaints of at least 338 violations of human rights during El Salvador’s massive arrests of suspected gang members

Human rights groups are criticizing El Salvador’s massive arrests of suspected gang members

President Nayib Bukele has asked El Salvador’s congress to extend an anti-gang emergency decree for another 30 days

El Salvador’s congress has granted a request by President Nayib Bukele to extend an anti-gang emergency decree for another 30 days.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights is calling on the government of El Salvador to respect human rights, after authorities declared a state of emergency and rounded up 14,000 suspected gang members

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights is calling on the government of El Salvador to respect human rights, after authorities declared a state of emergency and rounded up 14,000 suspected gang members.

El Salvador’s security forces have arrested more than 10,000 suspected gang members in just over two weeks under rules that free them from having to explain an arrest or grant access to a lawyer

El Salvador's security forces have arrested more than 10,000 suspected gang members in just over two weeks under rules that free them from having to explain an arrest or grant access to a lawyer.

A day after the bloodletting -- 62 gang killings that convulsed El Salvador -- the crackdown began. President Nayib Bukele has responded to the surge in gang killings with mass arrests in poor neighborhoods like San Jose El Pino, each day posting the growing arrest total and photos of tattooed men. The highly publicized roundups are not the result of police investigations into the murders in late March, but propel a tough-on-crime narrative that critics are calling “punitive populism.”

A police union in El Salvador says some National Civilian Police commanders have been pressuring officers to meet daily arrest quotas as part of the government’s crackdown on street gangs that have yielded more than 10,000 arrests

With more than 6,000 people held after a weekend killing spree, El Salvador's president and his congressional allies have put civil liberties on hold.

El Salvador’s congress has approved laws that would impose prison sentences of 10 to 15 years for news media that reproduce messages from the country’s street gangs, and that’s alarming press freedom groups

Thousands of cryptocurrency enthusiasts are gathering in Miami as the city builds its reputation as one of the key locations to develop the blockchain technology despite its underdog status.

El Salvador’s president has threatened to stop providing food for imprisoned members of street gangs

El Salvador’s president threatened Tuesday to stop providing food for imprisoned members of street gangs following a wave of killings. Speaking at a graduation ceremony for new police officers and soldiers, President Nayib Bukele said that if the gangs “unleash a wave of crimes, we are going to cut off food in the prisons.” Previously, Bukele had ordered food for gang members held in Salvadoran prisons be reduced to two meals per day, seized inmates’ mattresses and posted a video of prisoners being frog-marched through corridors and down stairs.

El Salvador experienced its first day without a killing since imposing a state of emergency following a rash of gang violence last weekend

El Salvador’s security forces have intensified their operations against the country’s street gangs with mass arrests, the cordoning off of entire neighborhoods and house-by-house searches under a state of emergency sought by President Nayib Bukele.

Security forces intensified operations against El Salvador’s street gangs Tuesday with mass arrests, the cordoning off of neighborhoods and house-by-house searches under a state of emergency that has raised concerns among some organizations it could open the door to human rights abuses. Rather than back down under growing criticism, President Nayib Bukele appeared ready to double down, announcing late Tuesday that he had asked the president of the Congress to convene lawmakers to give him more legal tools to take on gangs.

The government declared a state of emergency and locked down prisons after more than 80 murders were committed Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

The government of El Salvador has arrested more than 600 gang suspects and ordered reductions in food for inmates, after a wave of killings over the weekend

The government of El Salvador has arrested more than 600 gang suspects and ordered reductions in food for inmates, after a wave of killings over the weekend.

The homicides appeared linked to the country's notorious street gangs, who effectively control many neighborhoods in the the capital.

After making the cryptocurrency legal tender, President Nayib Bukele plans to launch bitcoin-backed bonds to raise $1 billion for the country.

El Salvador's congress has granted President Nayib Bukele's request to declare a state of emergency, amid a wave of gang-related killings over the weekend.

Four months into El Salvador's Bitcoin experiment, few use the cryptocurrency, fraud has been widespread, and the country has lost up to $22 million.

Four Salvadoran women all had sought medical help for obstetric emergencies, and each ended up in prison sentenced to 30 years on aggravated homicide convictions for allegedly terminating their pregnancies.

A new Cold War is brewing in Latin America between the U.S. and China amid a shifting global order driven more by economics and technology than by politics and ideology.

The International Monetary Fund says that El Salvador should dissolve the $150 million trust fund it created when it made the cryptocurrency Bitcoin legal tender and return any of those unused funds to its treasury.

One thing Nayib Bukele has succeeded at: Turning the president of a gang-plagued Central American country into the world’s most unlikely tech bro.

The International Monetary Fund wants El Salvador to drop the highly volatile cryptocurrency Bitcoin as legal tender and strictly regulate the electronic wallet the government has pushed adoption of across the country.

In a story published January 13, 2022, about the hacking of journalists' cellphones in El Salvador, The Associated Press erroneously reported the last name of one of the journalists involved.

An endangered leopard captured in Iraq's mountainous north had its hind leg amputated following a trap-inflicted wound. The Persian leopard, taken in a day earlier in Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region near the border with Turkey, had injured two people, said Colonel Jamal Saado, head of the environmental protection police in Dohuk province.

President Nayib Bukele's government has freed three Salvadoran women who were sentenced to 30 years in prison under the nation's strict anti-abortion laws after suffering obstetric emergencies.

Abortion rights groups say President Nayib Bukele’s government has freed three Salvadoran women who were sentenced to 30 years in prison under the nation’s strict anti-abortion laws after suffering obstetric emergencies.

President Nayib Bukele's government has freed three Salvadoran women who were sentenced to 30 years in prison under the nation's strict anti-abortion laws after suffering obstetric emergencies, according to abortion rights groups. Morena Herrera of the Citizen's Group for the Depenalization of Abortion said late Friday that the group was told one woman would be set free at presidential order, but when they went to the prison to greet her, three were released. The three are among at least 17 Salvadoran women activists consider unjustly convicted and imprisoned following obstetric emergencies and who have been at the center of a campaign against El Salvador's absolute law against abortions.

Right up until 1984, the notorious former island prison of Gorgona off Colombia's Pacific coast was a tragic place where political prisoners and dangerous criminals were sent to serve out their sentences, sometimes until death. These days, only a few crumbling walls of the prison remain on an island that attracts a small amount of eco-tourism, mostly for scuba-diving or to explore its incredible biodiversity.

Former student leader Gabriel Boric will be under quick pressure from his youthful supporters to fulfill his promises to remake Chile after the millennial politician won the country’s presidential runoff.

Allegations from the U.S. government that El Salvador President Nayib Bukele’s administration negotiated with the country’s powerful street gangs touched a sensitive topic

Allegations from the U.S. government that El Salvador President Nayib Bukele’s administration negotiated with the country’s powerful street gangs touched a sensitive topic.

The U.S. Treasury says the government of El Salvador President Nayib Bukele secretly negotiated a truce with leaders of the country’s powerful street gangs.

The government of El Salvador President Nayib Bukele secretly negotiated a truce with leaders of the country’s powerful street gangs, the U.S. Treasury announced Wednesday. The U.S government alleges Bukele's government bought the gangs' support with financial benefits and privileges for their imprisoned leaders including prostitutes and cell phones. Bukele vehemently denied the accusation when it was reported in August 2020 by the local news site El Faro.

El Salvador President Nayib Bukele says his government will build an oceanside “Bitcoin City” at the base of a volcano.

El Salvador President Nayib Bukele has pitched a proposed law requiring people and organizations who receive foreign funding to register as “foreign agents,” following the lead of countries like the United States.

At a geothermal power plant near El Salvador’s Tecapa volcano, 300 computers whir inside a trailer as they make complex mathematical calculations day and night verifying transactions for the cryptocurrency bitcoin.

El Salvador has mined 0.00599179 bitcoin, or about $269, with power harnessed from a volcano, in a first for the country.

To understand why there’s a crisis in Central America, an expert said, you have to start with El Mozote.

Salvadorans trying to pay for a cup of coffee or receive money sent from relatives in the United States using the cryptocurrency bitcoin continued struggling to perform transactions, a day after El Salvador made it legal tender.

Demonstrators marched in the country's capital to protest the first national adoption of Bitcoin as a form of legal tender.

Between El Salvador officially adopting bitcoin as legal tender and the NFT market booming, here are four key things that happened in crypto this past week.

El Salvador has become the first country to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender, but the rollout stumbled in its first hours.

President Nayib Bukele faced international condemnation after his supporters moved to fire a third of the nation's judges and clear the way for Bukele to seek a second term.

El Salvador’s top court and its election authority have tossed aside what seemed to be a constitutional ban on consecutive presidential reelection.

A judge in El Salvador has ordered the pre-trial arrest of 10 former government officials, including ex-President Salvador Sánchez Cerén, on corruption charges.

Prosecutors in El Salvador have issued an arrest warrant for former president Salvador Sánchez Cerén on charges of embezzlement and money laundering.

El Salvador is the first country to make a cryptocurrency legal tender. Some locals like it. To others, it's “the devil’s money.”

El Salvador is the first country to make a cryptocurrency legal tender. Some locals like it. To others, it's "the devil's money."

The Biden administration is expanding its offensive against corruption and other causes of immigration from Central America.

The Biden administration is expanding its offensive against corruption and other causes of immigration from Central America.

The Biden administration is expanding its offensive against corruption and other causes of immigration from Central America.

The Biden administration is expanding its offensive against corruption and other causes of immigration from Central America.

A Mexican journalist who served as editor at a crusading Salvadoran website said Friday he was expelled from the Central American country as part of President Nayib Bukele’s “offensive” against the press. Daniel Lizárraga served as editor at the Salvadoran news site “El Faro,” which often exposed corruption or abuses. The administration of Bukele ordered him to leave the country earlier this week, claiming his work visa hadn’t been renewed because he could not prove he was a journalist.

In the narrow, gang-controlled alleys of the Las Palmas neighborhood, struggling Salvadorans are untroubled by actions of their president that so infuriate his critics. “No one can deny that he effectively has the support of the majority of the population and he is using that support and manipulating it to advance his agenda.”

In El Salvador, most are not bothered by President Nayib Bukele’s dictatorial maneuvers -- sending armed troops into congress to coerce a vote, or ousting independent judges from the country’s highest court, paving the way to control all branches of government.

In the narrow, gang-controlled alleys of the Las Palmas neighborhood, struggling Salvadorans are untroubled by actions of their president that so infuriate his critics. In this neighborhood they are grateful for the boxes of food staples they’ve received from Bukele’s government during the pandemic. For all the observers and critics who condemn a dangerous concentration of power by a charismatic leader who sports down-home blue jeans and leather jackets, Bukele enjoys an approval rating of more than 90% among people who saw three of four previous presidents jailed or exiled for corruption.

The U.S. State Department has named more than 50 current and former officials, including former presidents and active lawmakers, suspected of corruption or undermining democracy in three Central American countries. Many of the cases were known in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, but the inclusion of names on the U.S. list buoyed the hopes of anti-corruption crusaders. The list was provided to the U.S. Congress in compliance with the “U.S.-Northern Triangle Enhanced Engagement Act” pushed last year by U.S. Rep. Eliot Engel.

El Salvador’s ambassador to the U.S. visited McAllen on Thursday with a sales pitch and a message challenging mainstream conceptions of their country.

Critics of the plan to make bitcoin legal tender in El Salvador say the cryptocurrency's extreme volatility could bring devastation to one of the poorest countries in the hemisphere.

The global development organization cited "environmental and transparency shortcomings."

The World Bank on Wednesday declined to assist El Salvador in implementing bitcoin as legal tender, citing the environmental impact of the power-intensive process of "mining" the currency. El Salvador wants to become the first country to formally adopt the cryptocurrency, using it as a parallel legal tender alongside the US dollar, and recently approached the World Bank for help in achieving this. A World Bank spokesman said: "We are committed to helping El Salvador in numerous ways including fo

Bitcoin mining has taken a lot of heat for being harmful to the environment since it requires massive amounts of electricity to generate the invisible currency.

After El Salvador’s congress made the bitcoin legal tender this week, eyes turned to the rural fishing village of El Zonte on the Pacific coast.

After El Salvador’s congress made the bitcoin legal tender this week, eyes turned to this rural fishing village on the Pacific coast. Known to surfers for its pounding waves, El Zonte has had the cryptocurrency in its economy for the past year. Bitcoin already was legal to use in El Salvador but its acceptance was voluntary, so the legislation passed late Tuesday now requires all businesses — except those without the technology — to accept payment in bitcoin.

A spokesman for the IMF on Thursday warned of the risks of using bitcoin for day-to-day transactions after El Salvador, which is in negotiations for additional funds from the crisis lender, approved the cryptocurrency's use.

"It will bring financial inclusion, investment, tourism, innovation and economic development for our country," El Salvador's president said.

El Salvador’s Legislative Assembly has approved legislation making the cryptocurrency Bitcoin legal tender in the country, the first country to do so.

El Salvador President Nayib Bukele has announced in a recorded message played at a Bitcoin conference in Miami that next week he will send proposed legislation to the country’s congress that would make the cryptocurrency legal tender in the Central American nation.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is trying to entice Central American nations to tackle the corruption and poverty that have helped drive a surge of migrants to the U.S.-Mexico border and presented an early challenge for the Biden administration.

The New England Patriots’ team plane has delivered 500,000 Chinese-made COVID vaccines to El Salvador.

Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele's Cabinet chief and other allies have been included in a list of senior officials in Central America deemed corrupt by the U.S. State Department.

South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster has issued an executive order allowing parents to opt their children out of wearing masks in public schools.

The United States says it is gravely concerned over a vote by El Salvador’s new congress to remove magistrates of the constitutional chamber of the Supreme Court.

Aides to El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele say he's refused to meet with a visiting senior U.S. diplomat over what he sees as a pattern of slights from Democrats and the Biden administration.

Saúl Meléndez was a guerrilla fighter during El Salvador’s civil war.

Young women place flowers on the perimeter wall of the Quintana Roo state offices sprayed with graffiti that reads in Spanish "Justice for Victoria," during a protest in Mexico City, Monday, March. The demonstrators were protesting the police killing in Tulum, Quintana Roo state, of Salvadoran national Victoria Esperanza Salazar when a female police officer knelt on her back to cuff her. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo)MEXICO CITY – A Salvadoran woman who died in police custody over the weekend in a Caribbean beach resort had also suffered abuse by her companion, who has been arrested, Mexican authorities said Tuesday. Quintana Roo state Gov. Salazar's death increased tensions in Quintana Roo, where police used live ammunition to ward off a throng of about 100 demonstrators in Cancun in November.

Young women place flowers on the perimeter wall of the Quintana Roo state offices sprayed with graffiti that reads in Spanish "Justice for Victoria," during a protest in Mexico City, Monday, March. “She was brutally murdered by Tulum police officers in Quintana Roo, Mexico,” the president wrote. In the southern Mexico city of Tapachula, near the Guatemala border, Salazar requested and received refugee status. AdProtest marches were scheduled for later Monday in Tulum, Mexico City and San Salvador. AdThe woman’s death seemed likely to ignite tensions in Quintana Roo, where police used live ammunition to ward off a throng of about 100 demonstrators in Cancun in November.

President Nayib Bukele holds his ballots as he prepares to vote in local and legislative elections, at a polling station in San Salvador, El Salvador, Sunday, Feb. 28, 2021. El Salvador went to the polls in legislative and mayoral elections that could break the congressional deadlock that has tied the hands of President Nayib Bukele. Exit polls suggested his party could win 53 of the 84 seats in the Legislative Assembly. “The story is not unique to El Salvador — Democratic elections have yielded antidemocratic leaders and governments, of the right and the left elsewhere in Latin America. AdThe tribunal noted that president is supposed to avoid using his office to influence elections.

FILE - In this Feb. 17, 2021 file photo, Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele speaks before the start of vaccination of medical staff with the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine at the Atlacatl Medical Unit of the Salvadoran Social Security Institute in San Salvador, El Salvador. That could change Sunday when Salvadorans go to the polls in local and legislative elections that observers and surveys suggest could remake the country’s political landscape. Anger with the parties that ruled El Salvador for nearly three decades swept Bukele into office in 2019, and frustration remains. “In El Salvador, there is selective justice, an unjust, circular, vicious system where only the wealthy are favored,” Pastor said. “The people have placed their hopes in President Bukele who has changed preconceptions and like it or not, has helped the people.”

FILE - In this Feb. 7, 2020 file photo, people wearing masks attend a vigil for Chinese doctor Li Wenliang, in Hong Kong. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung, File)HONG KONG — Hong Kong is reducing social distancing rules following a sharp drop in new coronavirus cases, including restarting indoor dining and reopening gyms. More than two-thirds of the new cases were in Seoul area, home to half of South Korea’s 51 million people. The company has contracted to provide 100 million doses — enough for 100 million Americans — by the end of June. “We just need the vaccine to arrive.”___ATLANTA — Snowy and icy weather across much of the nation has “significantly” delayed shipments of COVID-19 vaccine to Georgia, state health officials said Wednesday.

FILE - In this Feb. 9, 2020 file photo, El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele, accompanied by members of the armed forces, speaks to supporters outside Congress in San Salvador, El Salvador. The Biden administration turned down a meeting request with El Salvador's president on an unannounced trip to Washington on the first week of Feb. 2021. But like other world leaders befriended by Trump, he faces an uphill climb pivoting to the Biden administration, which is seeking to undo those policies and has signaled its relationship with El Salvador is under review. Bukele insisted that the trip was private and that he didn't request any meeting with Biden officials. Legislation passed last year and supported by Democrats curbs U.S. foreign aid to El Salvador to fund the purchase of U.S. military equipment.

In this image take from UNTV video, Nayib Armando Bukele, President of El Salvador, speaks in a pre-recorded video message during the 75th session of the United Nations General Assembly, Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2020, at U.N. headquarters in New York. The tweet was widely shared in El Salvador. More recently, Stryk teamed up with another DC firm, Rational 360, which is run by veteran Democratic operatives including Joe Lockhart. El Salvador in October hired Rational 360 for $65,000 per month. Bukele’s government has also awarded a $780,000 contract to a newly formed U.S.-based entity called Invest El Salvador.

Women take pictures of an area destroyed by a deadly landslide in Nejapa, El Salvador, Friday, Oct. 30, 2020. The slide occurred Thursday night when earth from the upper part of the San Salvador volcano was set in motion, sweeping up trees and homes. (AP Photo/Salvador Melendez)

Women take pictures of an area destroyed by a deadly landslide in Nejapa, El Salvador, Friday, Oct. 30, 2020. The slide occurred Thursday night when earth from the upper part of the San Salvador volcano was set in motion, sweeping up trees and homes. (AP Photo/Salvador Melendez)SAN SALVADOR – A landslide left nine people dead, seven injured and one missing after torrential rains in El Salvador, civil defense officials said Friday. Local resident Roxana Ruíz came to the search area looking for news of her cousin; she later learned her body had been found. “We believe that we can find people alive and we are not going to rest,” said Interior Minister Mario Durán.

As late as last week, the United Nations still listed the deposed president, Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, as an upcoming speaker. But the final countries addressed the U.N. gathering on Tuesday afternoon with no word from Mali. Before this latest coup, extremists were moving south into more densely populated areas, adding to the frustrations that fed massive protests in the weeks ahead of the coup. He delivered a prerecorded address Tuesday to the U.N. General Assembly’s annual meeting of global leaders, being held virtually this year because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Emirati foreign minister also warned against what he said were “the expansionist ambitions of some countries in the region."

SAN SALVADOR – El Salvador's next ambassador to Washington is someone President Donald Trump might remember from his days as a beauty pageant boss. While Bukele has endeared himself to Trump by backing his hardline immigration policies, he's faced criticism among human rights and pro-democracy activists for defying El Salvador's supreme court and congress. Bukele last year signed a bilateral agreement that would allow the U.S. to send asylum seekers from other countries to El Salvador. Mayorga was a top 10 finalist at the 1996 Miss Universe won by Alicia Machado, a former Miss Venezuela who campaigned against Trump in the 2016 campaign. Machado accused Trump of labeling her with a sexist nickname — “Miss Piggy” — that caused her shame and humiliation after she was crowned Miss Universe.

FILE - In this Nov. 15, 2008 file photo, people hold banners depicting six Jesuit priests massacred in 1989, during a memorial to mark the 19th anniversary of their death, in San Salvador. For years, attempts within El Salvador to investigate and prosecute the masterminds of the massacre during that countrys civil war have been delayed and deflected by legal maneuvers. (Edgar Romero/AP Photo File)

For years, attempts within El Salvador to investigate and prosecute the masterminds of the massacre during that countrys civil war have been delayed and deflected by legal maneuvers. (Edgar Romero/AP Photo File)SAN SALVADOR – For years, attempts within El Salvador to investigate and prosecute the masterminds of a massacre of six Jesuit priests during that country’s civil war have been delayed and deflected by legal maneuvers. But the officers appealed and the case made it to the Supreme Court last year where it sits today. Two officers served short sentences in El Salvador, but were released in 1993 during the amnesty. Baulenas said authorities in El Salvador continue to resist efforts to determine who was involved in planning the murders.

Imprisoned gang members, wearing protective face masks, look out from behind bars during a media tour of the prison in Quezaltepeque, El Salvador, Friday, Sept. 4, 2020. President Nayib Bukele denied a report Friday that his government has been negotiating with one of the countrys most powerful gangs to lower the murder rate and win their support in mid-term elections in exchange for prison privileges. (AP Photo/Salvador Melendez)

Imprisoned gang members, wearing protective face masks, look out from behind bars during a media tour of the prison in Quezaltepeque, El Salvador, Friday, Sept. 4, 2020. (AP Photo/Salvador Melendez)SAN SALVADOR Prosecutors in El Salvador said Monday they have searched two prisons to investigate whether the administration of President Nayib Bukele had negotiated with one of the countrys most powerful gangs to lower the murder rate and win their support in mid-term elections in exchange for prison privileges. The prosecutors' office said agents searched two prisons where gang members are held to look for documents or other evidence of the allegations. Multiple former officials from previous administrations are currently being prosecuted for allegedly participating in a similar deal with the gangs. During his first year in office, he earned recognition as El Salvadors notoriously high murder rate began to fall.