Free Republic

Underneath the Honduran rain forests' dense canopy of trees, a team of researchers think they may have found the ruins of la Ciudad Blanca - the White City --- a legendary city of gold sought by Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes. In a 1526 letter to Spanish Emperor Charles V, Cortes described an area in the interior of Honduras with riches far greater than those of Mexico. In 1839, according to a report by Nature World News, American diplomat and aspiring archaeologist John Lloyd Sturges went out in search of ruins in western Honduras and found the Mayan city of Copan,...

The Google Map of eastern Honduras is almost blank. A vast and virtually unexplored rainforest region known as the Mosquitia covers around 32,000 square miles, home to dense jungle, hostile terrain and the terrifying-sounding jumping viper. Legend has it that somewhere beneath the forest canopy lies the ancient city of Ciudad Blanca – and now archaeologists think they may have found it. Tomorrow in Cancun, Mexico, an interdisciplinary group of scientists from fields including archaeology, anthropology and geology will appear at the American Geophysical Union’s annual conference to present the technology that has allowed them to discover a “lost world”...

Ancient Bones Found in Honduras Said to Be Olmec TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (Reuters) - Human bones believed to date from the ancient Olmec civilization have been found in southeastern Honduras, suggesting the influential culture extended farther than previously thought, Honduran authorities said on Tuesday. Missed Tech Tuesday? Here's the real reasons you need speed, plus better broadband tips and making do with dial-up. Carmen Fajardo, at the Honduran Institute of Anthropology and History, said it appeared to be the first time Olmec remains have been found outside the so-called Mesoamerican corridor that stretches from Mexico to central Honduras. "For the first...

Potters at Maya cities on the Caribbean side of Central America fused volcanic ash with local limestone to form household and ceremonial pottery, because the ash made their ceramics easier to fire. The distinctive recipe was a hallmark of the Late Classic Period from A.D. 600 to 900, Ford said. With thousands of people living in cities such as El Pilar and Tikal, the Mayan potters burned through several tons of volcanic ash every year, Ford has estimated. But no one can figure out where the ash came from. The mystery begins with the fact that there just aren't any...

San Salvador (AFP) - Wearing a particular brand of sneakers or a certain haircut can be a fatal style decision in Guatemala, El Salvador or Honduras -- three Central American nations struggling with a vicious gang pandemic. Looks that would be ordinary elsewhere have been appropriated by the criminal gangs as their signs on the streets, where armed turf battles have made these countries some of the deadliest places in the world, outside of actual war zones. That means the 6.5 million youths aged 15-24 living in the so-called Northern Triangle formed by the three nations have to think twice...

An accused Salvadorian gang member implicated in multiple homicides was flown out of Louisiana last week by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to face murder charges in El Salvador. Cesar Amauri Cruz-Marin, 42, is accused of shooting three men in the head in December 2009 in El Salvador, according to a press release sent Monday (Sept. 28) by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Authorities say he is a member of the M-16 gang, also known as Mara Salvatruch. The release says the shootings occurred after Cruz-Marin was removed from the United States in November 2009 and sent to El Salvador.

A Texas couple left the hospital convinced they’d been given the wrong baby—and as it turns out, they were right. Mercedes Casanellas and her husband, Richard Cushworth, are both missionaries from Texas who were working in Latin America. In May, while the couple was in El Salvador, Casanellas says she gave birth to a baby boy at a private hospital. Before the couple returned to their Dallas, Texas home, Casanellas says she felt something wasn’t right. She says the baby she was handed at the hospital looked different from the one she held in the delivery room. Finally, after three...

A Texas couple was reunited with their biological son late Monday after DNA tests confirmed that the child had been switched with another baby soon after he was born in an El Salvador hospital. Richard Cushworth and Mercedes Casanellas feared their child could have been sold to human traffickers after they realized that the child they had been given to bring home to Dallas had darker skin. Mercedes Casanellas, a native of El Salvador, gave birth to a baby boy in her home country back in May. Pictures released by the family showed her cuddling a light-skinned baby who was...

Penas Ciudad Barrios is a prison exclusively housing inmates from the Mara Salvatrucha gang in El Salvador The prison, built for 800, now houses 2,500 prisoners who run their own 'society' complete with bakery and hospital In August, El Salvador saw the highest number of murders since its bloody 12-year civil war ended in 1992 Their faces and bodies are covered in ink, telling the stories of the crimes they have committed and in honour of who they have done so all over their bodies. They are drug pushers, murderers and weapons dealers - members of the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13),...

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador, Aug. 27 (UPI) -- The Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court of El Salvador has ruled that criminal gangs within the country will be considered terrorist groups, including the MS-13 gang. El Salvador's most notorious gangs, Mara Salvatrucha, also known as MS-13, and Barrio 18, as well as any other criminal organizations that threaten or frighten the country's people are terrorists because of their "systematic attacks to life, security and personal integrity of the population," according to El Salvador's Constitutional Chamber. The chamber upheld and expanded El Salvador's 2006 Special Law Against Terrorist Acts on Monday...

Attorneys for Ingmar Guandique, an illegal immigrant from El Salvador who murdered Washington intern Chandra Levy in 2001, will likely ask for Guandique to be released from jail while he awaits a retrial of his 2010 conviction. A hearing is scheduled for Tuesday. Gunadique’s attorneys requested a new trial, asserting that evidence from a key witness against Guandique was false or misleading and claiming that a new trial would serve the “interests of justice.” In May, prosecutors agreed to a new trial despite the fact that they thought that Guandique’s conviction was justified. In June, a judge ruled that a...

A Dallas County jury has sentenced an illegal immigrant from El Salvador to 50-years in prison for an unspeakable crime. According to prosecutors 54-year old Mauricio Hernandez, a former Irving ISD custodian, sexually abused his teen stepdaughter, got her pregnant, then gave her pills forcing her to deliver a baby in a soccer park portable toilet in April 2013. Police said the then 13-year-old victim went to the hospital due to bleeding. Once there, she made an outcry statement about a sexual assault, being pregnant and giving birth to a baby. On Friday, Hernandez pleaded guilty to aggravated sexual assault...

Three El Salvadorean MS-13 gang members snatch 16-year-old in Long Island and rape her on golf course Three teenage reputed members of the MS-13 street gang were ordered held without bail Friday on charges they forced a 16-year-old into a wooded area of a Long Island golf course, where two of them took turns raping her while the third stood as a lookout. "This is one of the most brutal, heinous crimes that I have seen in a long, long time," Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas Spota said at a news conference following the suspects' arraignments. "This poor young woman...

BOGOTA (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Rampant gang violence and drug turf wars in parts of Central America are fuelling child marriage as girls seek to marry or couple with gang members and older men as a form of protection, researchers say. Traditionally child marriage has been most prevalent among indigenous communities in rural areas across Central America. But humanitarian groups working in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, say anecdotal evidence gathered in the past five years shows drug-fueled gang violence and organized crime is driving more girls to get married in cities. "We are seeing and hearing that increasing numbers...

RIVERHEAD, N.Y. (AP) — Three teenage reputed members of the MS-13 street gang were ordered held without bail Friday on charges they forced a 16-year-old into a wooded area of a Long Island golf course, where two of them took turns raping her while the third stood as a lookout. "This is one of the most brutal, heinous crimes that I have seen in a long, long time," Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas Spota said at a news conference following the suspects' arraignments. "This poor young woman is so lucky that, quite frankly, that she is alive. These are vicious...

On May 1, S.F. increased rate to $12.25 an hour Voters support move, but some business owners, workers are uneasy Sacramento will study raising pay wage above the $9 state rate SAN FRANCISCO In this diverse and densely packed city, known for high living costs and soaring rents, 77 percent of voters last year approved a series of pay hikes that will boost San Francisco’s minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2018. Yet there are tensions these days on Valencia Street in San Francisco’s multicultural Mission District over the minimum wage hike and what it means for businesses and...

Being a single mother or witnessing a gang crime could be enough for Central American illegal immigrants to get on the path to asylum under guidance the Homeland Security Department issued last week, opening up new ways for the current surge of illegal immigrants to gain a legal foothold in the U.S. The guidance, a 27-page training document from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, says women who flee Central America because they fear being a single woman at the head of a household can be deemed to be part of a targeted social group, and can make a claim that...

UNITED NATIONS – The Obama administration has begun implementing a program to fly to the United States at taxpayer expense unaccompanied minors from the Central American countries of Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras if the “children” under 21 have a parent legally residing in the U.S. “Americans will be outraged to learn their tax dollars are being used to help illegal aliens here in the United States bring their illegal-alien children here as well,” Tom Fitton, president of Washington-based Judicial Watch told WND. “The Obama administration wants to prevent another surge of Central American unaccompanied minors coming across the...

Great 2 minute Video: WH trying to bring more Central American immigrants to US? Images of unaccompanied children flooding across the U.S.-Mexico border defined the immigration crisis last summer. Now, the federal government is intervening so these children won’t have to make that trek -– they’ll get to fly into the U.S. instead. For free. A new State Department and Department of Homeland Security program seeks to stop the surge of immigrant children from Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador at the southern border by giving their U.S.-based parents the option to apply to have their kids picked up and put...

Obama has declared a ceaseless war on the citizens of the United States. Obama is facilitating, cheerleading, and dispersing tides of illegals--from the most violent, crime-ridden countries in the world--into American towns and cities from sea to sea. These are excerpts from official reports of the Overseas Security Advisory Council (OSAC) of the U.S. Department of State: El Salvador 2013 Crime and Safety Report El Salvador (population 6.3 million) is rated “Critical” for crime by the U.S. Department of State. \ El Salvador is considered one of the most violent countries in the world.The criminal threat in El Salvador...