"Mexico has agreed to allow the United States to restart a contentious Trump-era asylum program that requires certain migrants to wait in Mexico while their cases are pending, complicating the Biden administration's efforts to roll back the former president's restrictive immigration policies." - The New York Times, December 3, 2021 "'The most powerful tears I have ever seen in the history of art,' Anna Di Stasi, Sotheby's director of Latin American art, on a self-portrait of a weeping Frida Kahlo" that sold for a record-breaking $34.9 million. - Time, December 6/ 13, 2021 Rita Moreno, the first Latina to win an Oscar for "West Side Story," was featured in a December 16 New York Times interview. She and Ariana DeBose, playing Moreno's role in the Steven Spielberg version, discuss what the new musical "gets right." "Vicente Fernández, the powerful tenor whose songs of love, loss and patriotism inspired by life in rural Mexico endeared him to generations of fans as 'El Rey,' the king of traditional ranchera music, died (December 12). He was 81." - The New York Times, December 13, 2021 "Emma Coronel Aispuro, the wife of the notorious Mexican drug lord best known as El Chapo, was sentenced" to three years in prison. The former beauty queen, who married El Chapo on her 18th birthday, was convicted on "charges of helping run her husband's multi-billion-dollar criminal empire." - The New York Times, December 1, 2021 "A creeping barrage of U.S. sanctions on top Central American officials has made China an attractive partner for governments resisting Washington's push to tackle corruption and democratic backsliding in the region, officials and analysts say. The trend was thrust into focus this week when Nicaragua re-established ties with Beijing." - Reuters, December 12, 2021 "Lawmakers in Chile (December 7) legalized same-sex marriage, a landmark victory for gay rights activists that underscores how profoundly the country's politics and society have shifted in the past decade." - The New York Times, December 8, 2021