The Payless footwear chain store announced this week it has filed for bankruptcy in the United States and Canada, and plans to close some 400 stores. No Costa Rican stores will be affected by the financial difficulties. The Kansas-based firm, which has accumulated debts in excess of US$1 billion, said it had filed papers in a court in St. Louis, Missouri, and had also pleaded before the cour...

Editor’s note: The views expressed by guest columnists are not necessarily those of The Costa Rica Star, its advertisers, or its staff.  All eyes are on the U.S. Senate’s Judiciary Committee as they are expected to vote Monday on the U.S. Supreme Court nomination of Colorado appeals court Judge Neil Gorsuch which will clear the way for a full Senate vote on Friday in what many are calling a “...

Editor’s note: The views expressed by guest columnists are not necessarily those of The Costa Rica Star, its advertisers, or its staff.  By Britt Nelson Mainstream media is all abuzz about the breaking news late Wednesday that President Trump’s eldest daughter Ivanka Trump is officially joining the White House staff as a “special advisor” to her father. Not since former President George W...

— Costa Rica’s exports grew 1.4 percent in 2016. The Statistics and Census Institute (INEC) reported this week on Costa Rica’s economic activity. Data from 2016 show an annual growth in exports of about 1.4 percent over 2015; rising from US$9.4 to US$9.5 billion. The country’s “non-traditional” exports, like medical devices and technology-related exports, are second only to fresh pineapple ...

By late yesterday afternoon, Costa Rica’s Drug Control Police (known as the PCD, in Spanish) had finished counting the cash hidden in a truck attempting to enter into Costa Rica over the northern Peñas Blancas border with Nicaragua. A whopping US$310,380 was found stacked in 12 neatly wrapped packages, and meticulously placed under the front passenger’s seat in part of the air conditioning syst...

The U.S. State Department’s annual International Narcotics Control Strategy Report came out this month. In the Money Laundering and Financial Crimes section, the report's second volume, Costa Rica is noted as being a favorable base for, "transnational criminal organizations to commit financial crimes due to its location and limited enforcement capability.” The report acknowledges that despite t...

President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order that starts to undo the environmental policies put in place by - and the legacy against climate change of - his predecessor, Barack Obama. A key element in Trump's executive order, signed at the Washington headquarters of the Environmental Protection Agency is that it eliminates the requirement that federal government agencies factor t...

Editor’s note: The views expressed by guest columnists are not necessarily those of The Costa Rica Star, its advertisers, or its staff.  Welcome to Washington Mr. President. The never ending World Series of Politics has you on the scoreboard.  The Democrats are claiming victory over the failure of the U.S. House of Representatives to vote last week on the passage of President Trump’s...

The Republican leadership of the US House of Representatives canceled Friday's scheduled vote on President Donald Trump's bill to replace the healthcare reform carried out by predecessor Barack Obama. House Speaker Paul Ryan said that he and Trump agreed it would be better to withdraw the bill once it became clear that the measure would fail due to defections among the GOP majority. "We came...

Editor’s note: The views expressed by guest columnists are not necessarily those of The Costa Rica Star, its advertisers, or its staff.  High political drama played out all day Thursday leading to a one-day delay on the vote in the U.S. House of Representatives to pass President Trump’s American Health Care Act of 2017 which would officially replace ‘ObamaCare’. Key lawmakers now say the ...

The Costa Rican Ministry of Public Security confirmed today the capture of a Somalian man suspected of international terrorism. Police arrested last night the African suspect at the Temporary Assistance Center for Migrants (CATEM) in El Cruce de Santa Cecilia, in the county of La Cruz, Guanacaste province, said the ministry. The Somalian is identified as 25-year-old Ibrahim Qoordheen. Police...

US President Donald Trump's pick as Supreme Court judge, said Tuesday during his Senate hearing, the president's attacks on federal judges are "disheartening" and "demoralizing". Neil Gorsuch, once made a reference to Trump's attacks on federal judges in a private conversation with senators, which was later reported in the media, but he made his latest remarks in his public Senate hearing. "...

Friday, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) published an article on a 21-year-old woman from Corner Brook, Newfoundland who was declared missing by her family in early March. After the young woman, Kayla Jean Reid, had allegedly gone to a church retreat at the end of February and never returned home, her family contacted the Newfoundland police. As her family scoured the Internet for po...

Editor’s note: The views expressed by guest columnists are not necessarily those of The Costa Rica Star, its advertisers, or its staff.  By Britt Nelson U.S. Senate appointment confirmation hearings begin Monday for Colorado federal appeals court Judge Neil Gorsuch's nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court. Also Monday, FBI Director James Comey is to appear before the U.S. House in...

WASHINGTON, DC — Yesterday the White House issued the following statement following a meeting between Costa Rican President Luis Guillermo Solis and U.S. Vice President Mike Pence: "The Vice President met today with President Luis Guillermo Solís of Costa Rica at the White House. The Vice President praised Costa Rica's role as a key partner of the United States in promoting regional economic pr...

An iconic portrait of China's Communist leader Mao Zedong by Andy Warhol will be up for auction for the first time in China on April 1 at Sotheby's in Hong Kong. The portrait, dating back to 1973, is expected to fetch between $12 million and $15 million. "It is the most expensive painting from a western artist in Sotheby's Hong Kong," the auction house's Asia head Isaure de Viel Castel said ...

Editor’s note: The views expressed by guest columnists are not necessarily those of The Costa Rica Star, its advertisers, or its staff.  In the face of an estimated 300 FBI terror investigations ongoing within the borders of the United States, President Donald Trump’s temporary travel ban involving six Muslim-majority counties in the Middle East has been blocked again by federal judges in...

The White House on Tuesday reported that the president of the United States paid $38 million in taxes on an income of $150 million in his 2005 tax return. The government disclosed the information ahead of an upcoming report by television network MSNBC, which announced Tuesday it had obtained part of Donald Trump's tax returns and intended to reveal it. "You know you are desperate for ratings...

Editor’s note: The views expressed by guest columnists are not necessarily those of The Costa Rica Star, its advertisers, or its staff.  Democrats across the board are hoping to remove President Trump from office within his first nine months with help from mainstream media who are churning out as many negative news stories about President Trump, his staff and his appointees as they can pr...

Editor’s note: The views expressed by guest columnists are not necessarily those of The Costa Rica Star, its advertisers, or its staff. By Britt Nelson So far the explainers have yet to explain much about President Donald Trump’s new American Health Care Act to replace President Obama’s Affordable Care Act AKA ObamaCare. The explanations from Republicans are vague and difficult to understand...

The U.S. state of Hawaii filed a lawsuit requesting a federal judge issue a temporary restraining order on President Donald Trump's revised immigration executive order, becoming the first state to fight the order in court. On Monday, Trump signed the revised order suspending travel to the United States through a 90-day visa ban for people from six majority-Muslim countries: Iran, Syria, Libya, ...

By Wendy Anders From March 13 to 17, Costa Rican President Luis Guillermo Solís, as announced on his Facebook page,  will make a “working tour” to the United States. “In New York, I will be presenting, together with the High Level Panel on Women's Economic Empowerment, the final report containing actions and good practices for the effective inclusion of women in the workplace,” said Solís. ...

 The House Intelligence Committee will hold its first public hearing on the investigation into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election, committee chairman Devin Nunes announced Tuesday. The Republican congressman from California told reporters that the hearing will be held on March 20, adding that it is his intention to hold more public hearings on the matter, given the interest it has ...

US House Republicans on Monday presented their long-awaited plan to replace the Affordable Care Act pushed by former President Barack Obama, a much anticipated move after conservative lawmakers' repeated promises to do away with the current system, known as Obamacare. The GOP proposal is included in two bills, which basically aim to create a tax credit system to help people buy health insurance...

Editor’s note: The views expressed by guest columnists are not necessarily those of The Costa Rica Star, its advertisers, or its staff.  Presidential politics these days is getting as surreal as a Salvador Dali painting. Truth and reason have been thrown to the wind. Accusations and counter-accusations of political wrong-doing involving the Russians, possible wiretapping of President Donald ...

Politicians often claim there is a relationship between immigration patterns and increased crime. In a recent study done at the University at Buffalo in upstate New York however, no links were found between the two. According to the findings, immigration instead appears to be linked to reductions in some types of crimes. Robert Adelman, associate professor of sociology at UB and the paper’s lea...

An annual human rights report found the main problem areas in Costa Rica to be “overcrowded prisons, discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, and infringement on the rights of indigenous people,” said the 2016 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices published by the United States Department of State’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor. Other human rights conce...

This article was updated on Thursday, March 9 with correct name information for the victim. By Wendy Anders Today, in the early morning hours, a man was discovered lying along the side of the road with stab wounds in his stomach in the center of Puerto Viejo, a tourist beach town in the Atlantic coastal province of Limón, reported judicial investigative police (OIJ) press officials this afte...

The president of the United States on Saturday accused his predecessor of wiretapping his phones in Trump Tower during the campaign, saying the alleged activity was comparable to the Watergate case. Donald Trump leveled the startling accusations against Barack Obama in a series of early morning tweets, but offered no evidence to support his claims. "How low has President Obama gone to tapp (...

US Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Thursday recused himself from any current or future investigation of possible Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. The announcement followed revelations that then-Sen. Sessions met with the Russian ambassador to the United States on two occasions during last year's campaign. "During the course of the last several weeks, I have met with ...

Actress Jane Fonda revealed that she was raped and sexually abused as a girl in an interview published Thursday by Net-A-Porter magazine. "I've been raped, I've been sexually abused as a child and I've been fired because I wouldn't sleep with my boss," the two-time Oscar winner said. "I always thought it was my fault. That I didn't do or say the right thing," she added. Fonda's remarks c...

The recently appointed Attorney General of the United States met the Russian ambassador to the U.S. twice in Washington during the 2016 presidential campaign - something he did not disclose during his appointment confirmation hearing before the U.S. Senate. The meetings between Jeff Sessions and Russia's Sergey Kislyak took place in July and September, barely a few months before the presidentia...

Editor’s note: The views expressed by guest columnists are not necessarily those of The Costa Rica Star, its advertisers, or its staff.  By Britt Nelson What the heck just happened? The New York Times, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal, all openly-liberal publications considered mainstream media, just gave President Donald Trump’s Tuesday ‘address to the nation’ a thumbs ...

Wall Street closed with strong gains on Wednesday with the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA), the main market indicator, rising 1.45 percent and ending the day above 21,000 for the first time in history in the wake of President Donald Trump's address to a joint session of Congress. All the major indexes moved into record territory, with the DJIA up 303.31 points to 21,115.55 at the close of t...

The National Symphonic Orchestra hosts virtuoso American violinist Philippe Quint as guest soloist this Friday, March 3, and again on Sunday, March 5, in the first 2017 Season concert at the National Theater, said the orchestra. The OSN returns to San José's glorious rennaissance theater under the baton of Conductor Carl St. Clair, who has led the group since 2014. Philippe Quint, who has wo...

Seoul and Washington Wednesday began their annual joint military exercises amid heightened tension in the Korean peninsula owing to Pyongyang's latest missile tests and the alleged murder of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's half-brother. The first of these maneuvers, called Foal Eagle, which includes aerial, terrestrial and naval exercises, will continue until the end of April, announced the S...

Bread for the World responded to President Donald J. Trump’s first speech before a joint session of Congress last night. The following statement can be attributed to Rev. David Beckmann, president of the non-profit humanitarian group, Bread for the World: “President Trump and our new Congress have this week started to slash programs that help hungry people. Their actions don’t square with the lof...

Yesterday, Costa Rica’s legislature voted 23-16 in favor of requesting international action on recent restrictions of press freedom in the United States, reported the local Costa Rican digital news source AmeliaRueda.com. The motion, drafted by National Liberation Party Legislator Rolando Gonzalez, condemns recent moves by the newly elected U.S. President Donald Trump to restrict some major U.S...

Former President George W. Bush on Monday called for "answers" regarding Russia's alleged interference in the Nov. 8 presidential election won by Donald Trump. "I think we all need answers," the Republican former president said in an interview with NBC, the first he has granted since Trump's Jan. 20 inauguration. "I'm not sure the right avenue to take. I am sure, though, that that question nee...

Editor’s note: The views expressed by guest columnists are not necessarily those of The Costa Rica Star, its advertisers, or its staff.  By Britt Nelson It’s all about money. That's why investigators always say, “Follow the money.” Politicians follow the money. Criminals follow the money. Wall Street bankers follow the money. Immigrants follow the money. Innovation follows the money...