DANIEL ORTEGA

Nicaraguan police say they want to arrest the director of the Miss Nicaragua pageant, accusing her of intentionally rigging contests so that anti-government beauty queens would win the pageants as part of a plot to overthrow the government.

A new study says that about half of Nicaragua's population of 6.2 million want to leave their homeland because of a mix of economic decline and repression from President Daniel Ortega's government.

Nicaragua’s increasingly isolated and repressive government thought it had scored a rare public relations victory last week when Miss Nicaragua Sheynnis Palacios won the Miss Universe competition.

For the auxiliary bishop of Managua, fellow priests and many in the pews who have had to flee or were exiled from Nicaragua recently, the Sunday afternoon Mass at a Miami parish is not only a way to find solace in community.

The government of President Daniel Ortega described the Jesuit-run University of Central America in Nicaragua as a “center of terrorism” and seized its property, buildings and bank accounts on August 16.

The Jesuits say Nicaragua's government has confiscated the University of Central America in Nicaragua, which is one of the region’s most highly regarded colleges.

A new ferry line for commerce moving through Central America began operating Thursday, directly connecting El Salvador and Costa Rica to the exclusion of Nicaragua and Honduras.

Central America is experiencing a wave of unrest that is remarkable even for a region whose history is riddled with turbulence.

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is offering to help try to gain the release of a Roman Catholic bishop imprisoned in Nicaragua.

In his first visit to Latin America, Iran’s hardline president has met with his Nicaraguan counterpart and railed against a theme both leaders have in common: U.S. sanctions.

Roman Catholics in Nicaragua have had to hold traditional “Stations of the Cross” and other Holy Week processions on church grounds or inside the churches amid a ban on public demonstrations.

The Vatican has closed its embassy in Nicaragua after the country's government proposed suspending diplomatic relations.

Nicaragua ’s government says it has proposed suspending relations with the Vatican days after Pope Francis compared President Daniel Ortega’s administration to a communist or Nazi dictatorship amid a crackdown on the Catholic Church in the country.

Dozens of priests, nuns, seminarians and church workers have fled Nicaragua in recent years, or been exiled by President Daniel Ortega’s government, which considers them a threat.

Remittances to Nicaraguans sent home last year surged 50%, a massive jump that analysts say is directly related to the thousands of Nicaraguans who emigrated to the U.S. in the past two years.

Constant fear.

Nicaragua has cancelled the citizenship of 94 political opponents, including writers Sergio Ramírez and Gioconda Belli.

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega has sent 222 political leaders, priests, students, activists and other dissidents to the United States, whose release was long demanded by the international community.

Pope Francis on Sunday expressed sadness and worry at the news that Roman Catholic Bishop Rolando Álvarez, an outspoken critic of the Nicaraguan government, had been sentenced to 26 years in prison in the latest move against the Catholic Church and government opponents.

Roman Catholic Bishop Rolando Álvarez, an outspoken critic of Nicaragua’s government, has been sentenced to 26 years in prison and stripped of his Nicaraguan citizenship, the latest move by President Daniel Ortega against the Catholic church and his opponents.

President Joe Biden says he is happy 222 Nicaraguan prisoners sent to the U.S. have been released, but time will tell if the move signifies a real change in Nicaraguan policies.

Nicaragua’s Sandinista National Liberation Front has completed its political domination of the country by winning local elections decried as unfair in all 153 of the country’s municipalities.

It was an electoral campaign without rallies, demonstrations or even real opposition.

The Biden administration is ratcheting up pressure on President Daniel Ortega’s authoritarian rule in Nicaragua, banning Americans from doing business in the nation’s gold industry, threatening trade restrictions and stripping the U.S. visas of some 500 government insiders.

A judge in Argentina has launched a criminal investigation into Nicaragua’s President Daniel Ortega and Vice President Rosario María Murillo to determine whether they are responsible for crimes against humanity.

Exiled Nicaraguan economist Javier Álvarez received terrible news this week: his wife, daughter and son-in-law, jailed three weeks ago by the government of President Daniel Ortega, had been formally charged with serious crimes back in Nicaragua.

In the hours after El Salvador President Nayib Bukele announced he would seek re-election despite a constitutional ban, opinion quickly divided.

Pope Francis says the Vatican is in contact with the Nicaraguan government about its crackdown on the Catholic Church and hoped that “at the very least” nuns from Mother Teresa’s Sisters of Charity religious order would be allowed to return to the country.

Since the summer of 2021, when Nicaragua President Daniel Ortega locked up dozens of political opponents ahead of November’s presidential elections, Nicaraguans have been seeking asylum in Costa Rica at the highest levels since Nicaragua’s political crisis exploded in April 2018.

Pope Francis has expressed worry about the situation in Nicaragua following the detention of a Roman Catholic bishop and several priests.

Nicaraguan police have raided the residence of a Roman Catholic bishop, detaining him and several other people holed up inside for two weeks.

Nicaragua’s government recently shuttered seven radio stations belonging to the Catholic Church.

Nicaragua President Daniel Ortega’s government has closed seven radio stations this week owned by the Roman Catholic church, as well as two other outlets serving the largely rural northern area with a history of opposition.

The wife of Nicaraguan political activist Félix Maradiaga told journalists her husband had lost more than 65 pounds during his year in prison and she feared for his health.

Nicaraguan riot police have taken over the city halls of five municipalities that had been in the hands of an opposition party, four months before scheduled municipal elections.

The U.S. has imposed sanctions on Nicaragua’s state-owned gold mining company and the president of its board of directors partly over the Central American nation’s ties to Russia.

The government of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega has authorized Russian troops, planes and ships to deploy to Nicaragua for purposes of training, law enforcement or emergency response.

Nicaragua’s Sandinista-controlled congress has cancelled nearly 200 nongovernmental organizations this week, ranging from a local equestrian group to the 94-year-old Nicaraguan Academy of Letters, in what critics say is President Daniel Ortega’s attempt to eliminate the country’s civil society.

A Roman Catholic bishop in Nicaragua has begun an “indefinite fast” inside a church to protest increasing harassment from national police, who he said followed him throughout the entire previous day.

Four years after university students led protests against Nicaragua President Daniel Ortega’s government, his administration is minimizing the chance of a reoccurrence by seizing a dozen private universities and closing them or shifting control to the state.

Nicaragua’s ambassador to the Organization of the American States says he had been feeling a “weight in his heart” for the last couple of weeks.

The Biden administration is considering trying to expel Nicaragua from a lucrative regional free trade pact to retaliate against President Daniel Ortega’s crackdown on his opponents.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has hosted his Brazilian counterpart Jair Bolsonaro for talks in Moscow and hailed ties between the two countries, which he described as “friendship and mutual understanding.”.

Relatives in Nicaragua say that jailed former Sandinista guerrilla and opposition leader Hugo Torres has died at the age of 73.

Russia has been threatening to expand military ties with allies Venezuela and Cuba amid rising tensions with the U.S. over Ukraine.

The presence of a senior Iranian official at the investiture of Nicaragua’s president has angered Argentina, which alleges the official was involved in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish center in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people.

Nicaragua President Daniel Ortega has been sworn in for a fourth consecutive term following elections considered rigged and on a day marked by sanctions from the United States and European Union against members of his government.

Nicaragua's decision to sever diplomatic links with Taiwan and recognize China leaves the self-governing island democracy with just 14 diplomatic allies.

Benjamín Villalta, a 39-year-old Nicaraguan, couldn’t believe that a Mexican immigration office would open in the middle of the night to give him and some 40 other migrants humanitarian visas that would allow them to move about Mexico and work.

The Nicaraguan government has dropped visa requirements for Cuban citizens, a move that may spark an increase in Cubans travelling there in a bid to reach the United States.

Nicaragua’s President Daniel Ortega holds a commanding lead in preliminary results from Sunday’s election against a field of little known challengers.

A day after questioned elections, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega’s government has set about painting as a historic democratic victory what many of the world’s democracies condemned as a sham.

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega is seeking a fourth consecutive term as voting begins in elections against a field of little-known candidates while those who could have given him a real challenge sit in jail.

Back in May, the chances of Nicaragua President Daniel Ortega’s reelection to a fourth consecutive term were looking good.

More than 2,000 mostly Central American migrants were walking along a highway in southern Mexico toward the town of Huixtla where security forces had deployed, possibly signaling that authorities would soon try to break up the group.

Writer and former Nicaraguan Vice President Sergio Ramírez says he will live in exile in Spain, after the government of President Daniel Ortega tried to arrest him and banned his latest book.

Libya is planning an international conference next month to try to keep its political process on track.

One-time Nicaragua presidential aspirant Cristiana Chamorro and one of her brothers were among five people formally charged with money laundering Thursday.

The United States has slapped visa restrictions on 50 immediate family members of Nicaraguan officials who have been involved in or benefited from President Daniel Ortega’s growing repression.

The European Union is slapping sanctions on Nicaraguan first lady and Vice-President Rosario Murillo and seven other senior officials accused of serious human rights violations or undermining democracy.

The Nicaraguan government has organized rallies and festivities to mark the anniversary of the July 19, 1979, revolution that overthrew dictator Anastasio Somoza.

The U.S. State Department has announced that it is pulling the travel visas of 100 legislators, judges and prosecutors who aided the regime of President Daniel Ortega.

Nicaraguan police arrested a half dozen more opposition figures, including the sixth presidential hopeful to have been arrested in a crackdown that started last month.

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.

It was around 10:30 p.m. on a Sunday night when journalist Verónica Chávez heard a loud noise as she put her son to bed.

International criticism of the Nicaraguan government has grown following another night of arrests in Managua.

Writer and former Nicaraguan Vice President Sergio Ramírez says that there is “zero possibility” of holding free elections in Nicaragua Nov. 7 and that opposition forces who participate would only be “legitimizing” President Daniel Ortega’s re-election.

Nicaraguan authorities have ordered the capture of a former education minister and a businessman as the government’s crackdown continued to expand beyond leaders of the political opposition.

Nicaraguan police have arrested yet another opposition leader, bringing to six the number detained over the weekend.

The government of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega has arrested five opposition leaders, following the detentions of four presidential contenders earlier this month.

The U.S. State Department has called on Nicaragua to free opposition figure Cristiana Chamorro, who is being held incommunicado at her home after her laptops and cellphones were taken away.

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.

FILE - In this Sept. 5, 2018 file photo, Nicaragua's President Daniel Ortega and his wife and Vice President Rosario Murillo, lead a rally in Managua, Nicaragua. The Central American country has created a National Ministry for Extraterrestrial Space Affairs, The Moon and Other Celestial Bodies. (AP Photo/Alfredo Zuniga, File)MANAGUA – Nicaragua has created a new National Ministry for Extraterrestrial Space Affairs, The Moon and Other Celestial Bodies, which is drawing amused reactions on social media in a nation that has been struggling since anti-government protests three years ago. The agency was approved by 76 legislators Wednesday in the country’s congress, which is dominated by President Daniel Ortega’s Sandinista Party. Critics said the country does not have the money to spare for dreams of space exploration.

A nurse shows to the press a vial of Russia's Sputnik V vaccine for COVID-19 during a vaccination campaign inside River Plate stadium in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Tuesday, Feb. 2, 2021. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)MANAGUA – Nicaragua’s government said Wednesday that it had approved Russia’s Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use. “Nicaragua is advancing in its negotiations with Russia to supply” the vaccine, said the government outlet El 19 Digital. It was the first vaccine approved in Nicaragua, which still awaits its first doses. Argentina, Bolivia and Venezuela are among other left-leaning governments in the hemisphere that have approved the vaccine.

There is increasing concern for the safety of journalists covering protests at state capitals across the U.S., and in Washington. This week, now as a reporter in Oregon, I attended virtual training by the state police on what to do if there's a shooting rampage in the Oregon Capitol. The Legislature’s leadership, for the first time, included journalists in the training after several were assaulted by rioters outside the state Capitol in December. What has happened at the Oregon Capitol is a clear example of how those divisions have become sharper and more bitter. Until last year, protests at the marble-sheathed state Capitol had been relatively mild.

FILE - In this May 26, 2018 file photo, the Spanish word for "Murderer" covers a mural of Nicaragua's President Daniel Ortega, as part of anti-government protests demanding his resignation in Managua, Nicaragua. (AP Photo/Esteban Felix, File)MANAGUA – Nicaragua’s ruling party-dominated Congress passed a law Monday that would essentially ban opposition candidates from running in the 2021 presidential elections. The elections are scheduled for Nov. 7, 2021, and despite term limits — which Ortega has already exceeded — the 75-year-old leader is expected to run again. Nicaragua’s two main opposition groups had announced earlier this year that they will form a coalition to compete in the 2021 race. The U.S. government says it is pressing Ortega to hold free and fair elections and respect basic rights.

Throughout Latin America, a traditionally Catholic region with a surging evangelical presence in nearly every country, evangelical churches have kept spreading the Gospel despite government measures meant to slow the spread of the coronavirus. In at least two countries, evangelical pastors have died in alarming numbers during the pandemic. Some have attended evangelical services in the city of Atalaia do Norte and then brought the virus to our lands," he said. In Nicaragua, evangelical churches large and small stayed open too at least at first. Back in Nicaragua, many evangelical churches have reopened, some with health precautions, like Bethel where congregants are asked to bring their own hand sanitizer.

MANAGUA Inside Nicaragua's public hospitals, the walls are plastered with political propaganda, ruling-party activists ensure no information leaks out, and doctors were once forbidden from wearing masks. The government did not respond to a request for comment on the doctors' dismissals and the allegations of repression. Doctors have confirmed the relatives' suspicions, saying hospital administrators order virus deaths be categorized otherwise to keep official numbers low. The result has been dozens of sickened medical workers and more than 70 deaths, according to a count kept by the Medical Associations of Nicaragua. He had been voluntarily treating COVID-19 patients who were turned away from hospitals in Len and Chinandega, in western Nicaragua.

Pastora, one of the most mercurial, charismatic figures of Central Americas revolutionary upheavals, has died. His son Alvaro Pastora said Tuesday, June 16, 2020 that he died at Managuas Military Hospital of respiratory failure. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo, File)MANAGUA One of the most mercurial, charismatic figures of Central America's revolutionary upheavals, Edn Pastora, died early Tuesday. Edn Atanacio Pastora Gmez was born Nov. 15, 1936, in Ciudad Daro, Nicaragua. After the protests, as rumors swirled about Ortegas health, Pastora told the press that he had recommended that the Sandinista National Liberation Front choose a successor.

During a May 16 game, manager Norman Cardoze Sr. and coach Carlos Aranda felt sick. Cardozes son Norman Jr., the teams star slugger, was so weak and achy he didnt play. (AP Photo/Alfredo Zuniga)MANAGUA MANAGUA, NicaraguaA Nicaraguan Hall of Fame baseball manager was fired Tuesday, days after publicly speaking about being hospitalized with COVID-19 along with his son and coach. Norman Cardoze Sr., manager of the San Fernando Beasts, was not given a reason for his firing, but his wife Ftima Ruiz said the family suspects it was because they spoke out about being infected with the virus. Cardoze Sr. described the horror of watching people essentially suffocate before his eyes and seeing their bodies wrapped in plastic and removed.

A man watches a professional baseball game between Boer de Managua and Flecheros de Matagalpa at Dennis Martinez stadium in Managua, Nicaragua, Saturday, April 25, 2020. Then, during a May 16 game in the capital, Managua, manager Norman Cardoze Sr. and coach Carlos Aranda felt sick. Cardozes son Norman Jr., the teams star slugger, was so weak and achy he didnt play. The Cardoze father and son, who tested positive for the virus, spent a week in the hospital. Were like the circus clowns, while a ton of people without heart or conscience are risking the lives of the players and the fans, Carlos Aranda Sr. said.