El Salvador's War on MS-13: Nayib Bukele Goes...

How Cuba is Slipping into Drug Chaos Since the beginning of the year, the US has placed Cuba under an oil embargo, crippling its public services and throwing a society that was already on its knees into chaos. Blackouts roll for days, trash piles high and locals are getting sick ...  Show more

Sean got beaten up in Cuba! To celebrate this, we’ve thrown together a biopoly of crime in the tropics, beginning with the story of how American organized crime flocked to Havana in the 1920s as a Prohibition rum-runner’s paradise. After World War II, mobsters then executed a tak ...  Show more

Not long ago, the tiny nation of El Salvador had the highest murder rate in the world. Now, it has the highest incarceration rate. President Nayib Bukele – who has described himself as “the world’s coolest dictator” – has detained 70,000 gang suspects without trial. His supporter ...  Show more

Once the murder capital of the world, El Salvador finds itself grappling with both gang violence and geopolitical shifts. Between 2013 and 2016, murder rates soared due to gang wars and systemic extortion. President Nayib Bukele, emerging from this tumult, removes the safety catc ...  Show more

Rival gangs in El Salvador used to rule the streets. It was one of the most dangerous countries in the world, with a really high murder rate. But now its President claims it is one of the safest in the Western hemisphere. How did he do it? By creating a state of exception and arr ...  Show more

El Salvador has experienced a remarkable transformation. What had once been one of the most violent countries in the world has become incredibly safe.

Natalie Kitroeff, the New York Times bureau chief for Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean, discusses the cost of t ...