Hugo Chavez toilet paper on sale on Calle Ocho

When it comes to sanitation, Americans are spoiled. We have so much toilet paper in this country of anal-wipe abundance that we can afford to slap politicians' faces on it in protest.

Not so in Venezuela, where a TP shortage currently has government officials and opposition leaders blaming each other for the crappy situation. Newly elected president Nicolas Maduro has even accused private companies of toilet paper speculation.

So spare a thought -- and a square of your finest quilted tissue -- for Venezuela today.

See also:
- Hugo Chavez Toilet Paper Is a Hot Seller on Calle Ocho
- Barack Obama Toilet Paper Being Used at Florida Fire Station

More »

More »

While the United States awaits the Supreme Court's decision on dual cases that could affect the future of gay marriage in this country, Uruguay is set to become the second nation in Latin America to legalize same-sex marriage. The country's Senate passed a bill yesterday 23-8 that updated the country's marriage and family laws to open up the institution to gay couples.

See also:
- Argentina Becomes First Latin American Country to Approve Gay Marriage
More »

For this week's cover story on the soaring murder rate in Puerto Rico, I spent five days on the island. I visited crime scenes still wet with blood, picked up AK-47 shells sprayed around neighborhoods like confetti, and interviewed terrified locals.

But at the heart of the Caribbean commonwealth's killings is the issue of drugs. I spoke to people on all sides of the debate -- from drug cops to drug dealers -- and almost everyone agreed that America's War on Drugs ain't working.

See also:
- Puerto Rico's Wave of Drugs and Brazen Murders Reverberates to Miami
More »

Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina was elected today as the 266th Pope and the first from the Americas. Taking the name Pope Francis I, church watchers expect his election to reaffirm Catholicism's place in Latin America and its role as a missionary church.

But Bergoglio's failed effort in 2010 to stop Aregntina from becoming the first Latin American country to legalize gay marriage illustrates the church's lessening moral influence in a changing world.

More »

Taiwan's NMATV is known for bizarre CGI takes on current events, but its take on the death of Hugo Chávez is bonkers even by the network's standards. It involves the Venezuelan president in ghost form, a devil-horned George W. Bush, the former pope in a Hawaiian shirt, and, of course, Martians in man-kinis being whipped by a capitalist fat cat.

More »

Hafiz Khan, the 77-year-old former cleric at Miami's Flagler Mosque, could be spending the rest of his life in jail. Khan was convicted on four terrorism related charges this morning after a jury agreed that he had been secretly sending funds to help arm the Taliban. Each charges carries a maximum of up to 15 years in prison.

More »

courtesy of Bernard Diederich

Greene, left, and Diederich in Panama in 1976

Graham Greene is a literary legend, famous for best-selling spy novels like Our Man in Havana, The End of the Affair, and The Quiet American. But the writer was as mysterious as his characters: secretive and prone to bouts of bipolarism. Few people really ever got to know him.

Surprisingly, one of the men who knew him best now lives in a modest Miami apartment. But Bernard Diederich has one helluva story to tell in his own right.

The veteran Haiti correspondent tells New Times how he survived Central America's civil wars, Papa Doc's torture cells, and drinking whiskey with the greatest spy novelist to have ever lived.

More »

Chávez posed with his daughters earlier this month. Or did he?

Last night, CNN's Chilean affiliate reported that Hugo Chávez is not, in fact, recovering in a Venezuelan hospital because he is dead.

The report was based on the claims of Guillermo Cochez, until recently Panama's ambassador to the Organization of American States. In the hours since it was published, however, the TV station has questioned the accuracy of its own report.

More »

Hugo Chávez hasn't been seen or heard from by the public since December 10, right before he underwent surgery in Havana, Cuba. Now, new pictures of the Venezuelan president have emerged, and they're pretty oddly staged.

More »