The U.S. Senate Special on Aging found hikes as high as 5,000 percent in prices of some prescription drugs. The panel's 2016 investigation looked at four pharmaceutical companies and public hearings on sudden price spikes in decades-old medications, and the pricing imposed by drug industry entrepreneur Martin Shkreli and other healthcare industry executives. The high prices are making vital ...

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 In the United States of America it’s about time police departments nationwide changed their rules of engagement when dealing with an increasingly dangerous and armed public.  Police officers are shot responding to domestic violence ...

By Wendy Anders Air Canada last Thursday added a new seasonal route to its schedule of flights to and from Costa Rica. The direct Montreal-San José flight will operate during Montreal’s winter with two weekly flights on a Boeing 767-300ER with a capacity of 282 passengers, reported the airline in a press statement. Air Canada also operates Toronto-San José, Toronto-Liberia, and Montreal-L...

U.S President-elect Donald Trump said on Saturday he intends to dissolve his charitable foundation, the Donald J. Trump Foundation, which has been under investigation by the New York attorney general. Trump gave no timeline for winding down the foundation, but said in a statement that he wanted "to avoid even the appearance of any conflict with my role as President." He directed his counsel to ...

As the debate in Washington, DC rages over the de-funding of Planned Parenthood, researchers at the University of California, San Francisco Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences are gathering data about the effects on women’s lives of abortion and the consequences of being unable to access that care. The experiences of women who have an unwanted pregnancy and seek an abort...

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 Kellyanne Conway, Trump's senior counsellor, is the real deal. Who would have thought that a girl from New Jersey who learned about life working on a blueberry farm would land a job as senior counselor to President-elect Dona...

Panama City, Dec. 20 — The opposition Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) said Tuesday that Dec. 20 should be a "day of national mourning" to mark the U.S. invasion of Panama, which began on Dec. 20, 1989. U.S. military invasion of Panama on Dec. 20, 1989; source Newsroom Panama. "The death of an undetermined number of Panamanians, the destruction of property representing thousands of mill...

Christopher Farmer and Peta Frampton left the coast of Belize on June 26, 1978, aboard a boat named the Justin B. Photo for illustrative purposes. The young British couple in their mid-20s had decided to spend a year traveling abroad. They traveled to Australia and then went to the Americas. They toured Guadalajara, Mexico, and later wound up in Belize City, where they met an American named...

MIAMI, USA -- A New York City resident pleaded guilty on Monday, December 12 in connection with a sophisticated Caribbean cell-phone fraud scheme that involved compromising cell-phone customers’ accounts and “cloning” their phones to make fraudulent international calls. The United States Department of Justice. Farintong Calderon, 37, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire ...

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 (Wikimedia Commons) The Democrats last dying gasp for air collapsed Monday as Electoral College electors sealed the deal for President-elect Donald Trump to receive the oath of office on Jan. 20 thereby taking over the Executive Branch o...

Washington, Dec. 19 — Donald Trump yesterday received more than the 270 Electoral College votes he needed to confirm his victory in the Nov. 8 U.S. presidential election. The Electoral College's vote, comprised of 538 electors corresponding to all the members of Congress, is usually a mere formality to validate the number of electoral votes received in the November balloting by the winning pres...

Tackling climate change is the "biggest economic opportunity" in the history of the United States, no matter who holds political office, said Hollywood star and environmental activist Leonardo DiCaprio. "There are a few, very prominent people that still deny the overwhelming conclusions of the world's scientists that climate change is largely human-caused and needs immediate urgent attention,"...

President Barack Obama will leave office in January with US-Latin American relations in "better than ever" shape, his adviser for the region, Mark Feierstein, told EFE, adding that it would "make no sense" for President-elect Donald Trump to change US policy toward those nations too much. "US-Latin America relations are healthier now than they've ever been," said Feierstein, who is Obama's spec...

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 On Monday the U.S. Electoral College will officially certify the winner of presidential Campaign 2016 Donald J. Trump with a constitutionally required vote of its members who are mostly required to vote according to the will of the voters in t...

Quito, Dec. 14 — The Ecuadorian government on Wednesday signed a contract with Canada's Lundin Gold company to exploit a gold and silver deposit in the southeastern Amazon province of Zamora Chinchipe. Mining Minister Javier Cordova signed the deal to extract the precious metals as part of the Fruta del Norte project in the Yantzatza region. With an investment of $1 billion, the Canadian fir...

Verizon Communications Inc is looking at ways to modify its $4.8 billion deal to buy Yahoo Inc's core internet business after the technology company disclosed a second massive data breach, sources told Reuters on Thursday. Yahoo Inc shares fell almost 5 percent after the breach of data belonging to more than 1 billion users was disclosed, following another large hack reported in September. V...

Washington, Dec. 14 —  The district attorney in the case against U.S. actor and comedian Bill Cosby accused him on Wednesday of "a lifetime of sexual assault" on women in a pre-trial hearing. Kevin Steele, the district attorney for Pennsylvania's Montgomery County, where this week another round of pre-trial hearings is under way, hopes to convince the judge that the 13 women who have accused Co...

Los Angeles, Dec. 14 — Yahoo Inc. said Wednesday that an "unauthorized third party" gained access to personal information from more than 1 billion e-mail accounts. This is a good time for Yahoo users to change their password, if they haven't in a while; source Facebook. "The investigation indicates that the stolen information did not include passwords in clear text, payment card data, or ba...

The 2016 Monitoring the Future (MTF) annual survey results released today from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) reflect changing teen behaviors and choices in a social media-infused world. The results show a continued long-term decline in the use of many illicit substances, including marijuana, as well as alcohol, tobacco, and misuse of some prescription medications, among the nation’s teen...

By Wendy Anders Nearly all species of sea turtles are endangered, reported Great Big Story, but Tortuguero, a small island on the eastern coast of Costa Rica, offers a safe place for nesting green and leatherback sea turtles. It was here in 1959 that Dr. Archie Carr opened the world's first turtle conservancy. To this day, the island is one of the world's most important breeding grounds for ...

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 All you need to do is take one look at Exxon Mobile Chairman and CEO Rex Tillerson to know President-elect Donald Trump means ‘business’ with his pick for U.S. Secretary of State. Tillerson is no gloomy, boring career politician turned diplom...

President-elect Donald Trump's rejection this weekend of U.S. intelligence analysts' conclusion that Russia intervened in the 2016 election to help him win the White House is the latest in a string of conflicts between Trump and the intelligence community he will command. Most of them involve Russia, which has grown increasingly aggressive - according to what U.S. intelligence agencies have tol...

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 Photo for illustrative purposes. So far President-elect Donald Trump has named three retired top military generals to two cabinet positions for Secretary of Defense, four-star Gen. James “Mad Dog” Mattis; and Homeland Securit...

Washington, Dec 8 — A magnitude-6.5 earthquake rattled California's northern coast on Thursday morning, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) said. 7.7 earthquake in the Solomon Islands, Thursday, Dec. 8, source Facebook. There have been no reports thus far of casualties or significant material damage. The temblor occurred at 6:49 am (1449 GMT) off the coast, with its epicenter located 160 k...

Paris, France. Dec. 7 — Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is calling for the immediate release of Okke Ornstein, a Panama-based Dutch journalist who was arrested last month in Panama City to begin serving the absurdly disproportionate 20-month jail sentence he received at the end of a flawed defamation trial in 2012. Bananama Republic is Ornstein's satirical site that jabs at Panama's ...

CANNON BALL, N.D., Dec. 4 — After weeks of growing protests, the federal government announced Sunday it will not issue a permit for the construction of a stretch of the Dakota Access pipeline in North Dakota. Protests of the Dakota Access Pipeline have amassed up to 5,000 people from all over the US and the world, source Facebook. The Army Corps of Engineers said it will not give an easemen...

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 Source: Flick Commons If President-elect Donald Trump’s choice of retired four-star Gen. James “Mad Dog” Mattis for Defense Secretary is any clue, let’s hope Pro-Life Trump nominates the most hard-nosed-conservative ‘hangin’ judge he can...

(EFE).- The death toll in the electronic music concert fire last week in a converted warehouse in Oakland, California, has risen to 30, authorities said Sunday. Sgt. Ray Kelly, with the Alameda County Sheriff's Department, confirmed the figure at a press conference warning that the number of dead could rise further because there are still people missing in the wake of the tragedy. "We antic...

Lack of sleep among the U.S. working population is costing the economy up to $411 billion a year, which is 2.28 percent of the country's GDP, a new report finds. Map showing economic costs of insufficient sleep across five OECD countries. Credit: RAND Corporation According to researchers at the not-for-profit research organisation RAND Europe, part of the RAND Corporation, sleep deprivation...

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 President Obama in a Rolling Stone magazine interview released Tuesday blamed Fox News for Hillary Clinton’s presidential loss to Republican billionaire Donald Trump. The exiting president said Clinton and the Democrats failed to reach wh...

A container ship, photo for illustrative purposes. Scientists have long used satellite tags to track endangered blue whales along the West Coast, learning how the largest animals on the planet find enough small krill to feed on to support their enormous size. Now researchers from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries, Oregon State University and the University...

The question of whether President-elect Donald Trump will run afoul of federal conflict-of-interest rules or the Constitution because of his extensive foreign investments has been the subject of intense scrutiny among legal and ethics scholars. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks to supporters as he takes the stage for a campaign event in Dallas, Monday, Sept. 14, 2015. (AP P...

Washington, Nov. 28 — Eleven people were hurt Monday on the campus of Ohio State University when a man deliberately drove his car into a crowd and then jumped out and attacked pedestrians with a butcher knife until he was fatally shot by a police officer. Ohio State University campus after the attack, source Facebook. OSU public safety director Monica Moll identified the attacker as Abdul R...

COLUMBUS, Ohio, Nov. 28 — The Ohio State University Department of Public Safety this morning said an active shooter was on campus and urged people to shelter in place and await police instruction. Law enforcement told the Columbus Dispatch police shot and killed one suspect on the campus. There are reports there may be a second attacker. Wikimedia Commons Firefighters said at least nine ...

According to the 2016 Open Doors Report on International Educational Exchange data released by the Institute of International Education (IIE) in partnership with the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs,  there is a significant increase in the student mobilization between the United States and Costa Rica. President Obama launched the initiative “The force of 100...

(EFE).- U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said in a statement Saturday following Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro's death that he hoped the passing of the "brutal dictator" would usher in a new era of prosperity and freedom for the Caribbean island. Trump - whose first reaction was a brief tweet Saturday morning that simply read "Fidel Castro is dead!" - issued a full statement a few hou...

By Britt Nelson Tulsi Gabbard The Clintons. What will the future hold for these two aging, career politicians – Bill and Hillary -- now that their dream of a second Clinton administration has gone with the wind? At this point it’s time for the nation to say goodbye to the Clintons and give a warm welcome to Tulsi Gabbard. On Tuesday, aide to President-elect Donald Trump Kellyanne Conway ...

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 Four-star Gen. James “Mad Dog” Mattis was interviewed this weekend for Secretary of Defense. Daily Wire/Getty Images Seems as if losing the presidential election is not enough for the Democrats. They are continuing with their racist and ...

Washington, D.C., Nov. 17 — Three Democratic lawmakers on Thursday asked President Barack Obama to use his executive authority before leaving office to pardon the more than 750,000 undocumented young people known as "DREAMers" who were illegally brought to the U.S. as minors by their parents. Photo for illustrative purposes. The request was made by U.S. Representatives Luis Gutierrez, Lucil...

CHURCHILL, Manitoba, Nov. 17 — A tour guide in Canada discovered that man's best friend has pals elsewhere in the animal kingdom when he captured video of a polar bear petting a dog. David De Meulles said he was taking a pair of North Star Tours clients on a polar bear watching expedition during the weekend in Churchill, Manitoba, when the group witnessed the meeting between the bear and dog, w...