Joran van der Sloot, the prime suspect in the 2005 disappearance of Alabama teenager Natalee Holloway, has been moved to a different prison in Peru early Saturday, officials said – a step in what is expected be his eventual temporary transfer to face charges in the United States.

Van der Sloot was involved in a fight inside his prison ward during visiting hours last week and suffered a cut to his fingers and some bruising, Altez said, adding that van der Sloot was placed in the prison’s medical section.

Van der Sloot, a Dutch national, was convicted in 2012 of murdering Stephany Flores, 21, in his Lima hotel room and sentenced to 28 years in prison.

He faces charges in connection with an alleged plot to sell false information about the whereabouts of 18-year-old Holloway’s remains in exchange for $250,000. Holloway’s mother, Beth Holloway, wired $15,000 to a bank account van der Sloot held in the Netherlands and through her attorney gave him another $10,000 in person, according to a 2010 US federal indictment.

Once he had the initial $25,000, van der Sloot said he would show John Kelly, the Holloway family attorney, where Natalee Holloway’s remains were hidden, but the information turned out to be false, the indictment states.

Natalee Holloway was last seen alive with van der Sloot and two other men 18 years ago leaving a nightclub in Aruba.

Police in Aruba arrested and released the three men – van der Sloot and brothers Deepak and Satish Kalpoe – multiple times in 2005 and 2007 in connection with Holloway’s disappearance. Attorneys for the men maintained the men’s innocence throughout the investigation.

In December 2007, the Aruban Public Prosecutor’s Office said none of the three would be charged and dropped the cases against them, citing insufficient evidence.

Holloway’s body has not been found. An Alabama judge signed an order in 2012 declaring her legally dead. No one is currently charged in her death.

When the call came in, the staff at Animals Asia jumped into action. A bear in Vietnam’s northeastern Haiphong region had been kept captive for years, her bile harvested in painful and invasive ways – and the farmer was finally giving her up.

The team found a familiar scene when they arrived at the farm, early on a recent morning. The bear, named Sunset, was caged in a dark and dingy room, the narrow metal bars rusted through, her paws covered with pus, her fur missing clumps and her claws so overgrown they dug into her flesh.

This is the condition of many bears after years of captivity, kept alive so their bile – a gold-colored liquid secreted by the liver – can be extracted and used in traditional medicines, from topical lotions to eye drops and injections.

The trade of these products is forbidden in most Asian countries, and activists are trying to end what they see as a cruel and unsustainable practice. But international experts say it remains a lucrative industry in China, where domestic sales of bear bile remain legal.

Jill Robinson has seen many cases like Sunset’s since she founded Animals Asia in the 1990s. In recent years, the organization has rescued nearly 680 bears from bile farms across Vietnam and China, many showing signs of extreme trauma.

“They have no free access to food or water. They have no outside stimulation. They haven’t even seen the sunshine,” she said. “They’ve got massive hair loss, they’ve often got broken teeth from (biting the bars of their cages) in frustration and pain.”

But eliminating bile farming has proved difficult. It’s a profitable business for farmers, and while scientists are working to develop synthetic alternatives, many consumers prefer the real thing. During its heyday in Vietnam, just one milliliter of bile could sell for $10, Robinson said.

In Vietnam, taking bears from the wild or extracting their bile has been illegal since 2005, when there were thought to be around 4,000 bears in captivity. That figure has since dropped, but there are still roughly 300 bears kept on farms, due to a legal loophole that allows farmers to keep their existing bears if they claim not to be extracting bile – even though the poor health of rescued bears makes it “obvious” the extraction continues, according to Robinson.

David Garshelis, co-chair of the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Bear Specialist Group, estimates there are still about 300 bile bears in South Korea, and about 100 in Laos and Myanmar each. But China is “the biggest market for bear bile products by far,” with roughly 15,000 bile bears in captivity and plenty of demand, he said.

Medicinal uses, painful extractions

Traditional Chinese medicine is the main driver for the trade, with bear bile prescribed for epilepsy, hemorrhoids, heart disease, cancers, colds and hangovers.

The first reference to bear bile used in this context appeared in a Tang Dynasty medical text in 659 A.D., since when use of the ingredient has spread across Asia.

Ursodeoxycholic acid, one of the main components in bear bile, has been medically proven to help dissolve gallstones and treat liver disease. But this component can be synthetically produced, without the need for bear extraction. And there’s no internationally recognized scientific evidence showing bear bile can cure other ailments promoted in TCM.

The use of traditional Chinese medicine is still debated in China, where it has both adherents and critics. Abroad, these remedies face even more skepticism from Western medical experts, who have long questioned their safety and effectiveness.

Asiatic black bears, also known as moon bears, are the preferred species for bile harvesting. They have traditionally been poached in Southeast Asian countries like Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Indonesia and Malaysia, where their populations have declined dramatically due to overhunting, according to NGOs.

Harvesting techniques differ from country to country, with some more controversial than others.

In the 1990s, Vietnamese farmers would extract bile by cutting into the bears’ abdomens and gallbladders then stitching them back up, Robinson said. But bears could survive only a few such procedures.

After that, farmers began giving bears the drug ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, before “stabbing around where they thought the gallbladder might be situated” with a needle, often hitting organs like the spleen, kidneys and liver, before using a mechanical pump to extract the bile, she said.

In some cases, bears undergo surgery to create a permanently open duct from the gall bladder to the abdomen, from which bile drips freely, causing infections and abscesses, according to Animals Asia.

In South Korea, farmers aren’t allowed to extract bile from living bears – but are allowed to kill farmed bears over 10 years old, and sell their gall bladders to be milked for bile, Garshelis said.

In China, farmers in decades past kept bears in metal jackets to restrict their movement and used harmful extraction techniques, Garshelis said. But regulations in 1996 mandated minimum cage sizes and approved only one method of bile extraction, to be used on bears above three years old.

This method involves surgery to create a “tube out of the animal’s own tissue” through which bile can be extracted, Garshelis said. In a 2016 report, China’s State Forestry Administration and the IUCN’s Species Survival Commission described the bears’ newly healed tissue as a “natural sphincter that effectively prevents any leakage of bile.”

Farmers then insert a hollow probe through that “sphincter” to collect bile while the bear is distracted by food. The report claims the bear “does not experience any ill effects,” and that no bears showed “any obvious, overt sign of stress or disturbance” during demonstrations.

Garshelis described the method as “less invasive.” But some activists say the old methods of farming and extraction still continue in pockets of the country.

Turning the tide

in Vietnam, the legal loophole allowing farmers to keep existing bears makes it “almost impossible” to shut down farms unless authorities catch people in the act of extracting bile, Robinson said.

Instead, activists and authorities have been trying a softer approach – working with local communities, schools and tourism boards to convince farmers to voluntarily surrender their bears.

One immediate obstacle is the sheer wealth bile farming can bring in.

“The bear farming community is normally one of the richest communities in the village,” Robinson said. During one recent rescue near Hanoi, “when we went into the village, we saw the biggest, flashiest house, and that was the bear farmer’s house. Over the years, (farmers) have made millions of dollars in this industry.”

But she’s hopeful the tide could turn – especially now that the remaining bile bears are growing older and sicker, which could mean less quality bile left to extract. The diminishing returns could make it “in the bear farmers’ best interest to relinquish these bears anyway,” she said.

For Robinson and Animals Asia, that would mean being able to “give them the last few years at our sanctuary to, at last, finally live as bears,” she said. The organization operates an 11-hectare sanctuary in Tam Dao National Park near Hanoi – where Sunset now lives – and are building a second sanctuary in Bach Ma National Park.

Meanwhile in China

In contrast to the clampdowns in countries like South Korea, which vowed last year to fully ban bear bile farming from 2026, China’s trade is booming. Garshelis estimates there are 50 million consumers of bear bile products in the country.

QY Research, a China-based market research firm, estimated in a 2022 report that the Chinese market for bear bile powder was worth nearly $62 million, making up for nearly 97% of the global market – and its value is only expected to increase in the coming years. China sold 44.68 tons of bear bile powder in 2021, according to the report.

China’s bear bile industry is different in that it’s legal, regulated and commonplace. Whereas bear bile products in Vietnam are illegally distributed underground and could be fake or tainted, Chinese products come with “a stamp to tell you it’s legitimate,” Garshelis said.

People can get cheap bear bile medications over the counter, by prescription, in hospitals, and “it’s all approved, so you feel safe getting this as a real medicine,” he added.

In 2020, the Chinese government even endorsed Tan Re Qing – an injection containing bear bile – on a list of recommended medicines to treat Covid-19 patients.

And the number of bile bears is only increasing, Garshelis said. While China forbids the capture of wild bears for bile farming purposes, its farms can contain up to 5,000 bears in a single site and run breeding programs.

Chinese authorities claim the farms discourage the poaching of wild bears, thus benefiting wildlife conservation efforts.

Many activists question this logic, but some experts say it is hard to disprove China’s claims.

Garshelis is part of a years-long study on the impact of bile bear farming, done in collaboration with Chinese researchers, international experts and IUCN members. After a decade of research, the only consensus they reached was that it is “impossible to conclude definitively how farmed bile influenced the overall consumption of wild bile.”

Due to factors such as reforestation and anti-poaching enforcement, “it’s hard to then say that farming has done anything” – or whether the population would be growing even faster if the farms were gone, Garshelis said.

“We don’t know whether it’s reduced the demand for wild gallbladder or not … 10 years later, we never could come to an answer, truly, what the effects of bear farming are.”

Rayman Mathoda was driving down Olympic Boulevard in Los Angeles in the year 2000 when she decided that she had made a mistake. She needed to live her truth and get back together with her girlfriend whom she had broken up with earlier. She could not go back to India to start what she believed would be a false heterosexual marriage.

When the couple reconciled, they came out to their families in India over email. It went south, she recalled. The families rejected the couple and their hostile response scared Mathoda — she did not feel safe going to India.

“It made me decide to stay back in the US,” she said. “Until that moment, we both wanted to move back to Delhi and live and build a life in India.”

Mathoda is among many LGBTQ Indians who move or stay abroad where they can embrace their identity, find love, and live with more rights and little stigma. Now, many look to their motherland with high hopes after the Indian Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case on legalizing same-sex marriage. The court reserved judgment but a ruling could come in the weeks ahead.

More than a dozen petitioners are asking the court for the same rights granted to heterosexual couples, such as eligibility to adopt, open joint bank accounts, and cover their spouse as part of their insurance.

LGBTQ Indians throughout the world hope that the five-judge panel will rule in favor of same-sex marriages to build on the historic 2018 Supreme Court decision to decriminalize consensual gay sex, which was a relic of the country’s colonial past.

The opposition to same-sex marriage comes from religious groups and the Indian government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which says it recognizes many forms of relationships but views legal marriage as an arrangement between a man and a woman.

It is unclear how long the court will take to announce a decision, but if legalized, it would make India the second country in Asia to recognize same-sex marriages.

Mathoda stayed in the US, because she could not see a life in India with her now-wife Avantika Shahi in the face of family opposition. The lack of legal rights for their union further sealed her decision not to return to India. She also worried about how the negative view of the LGBTQ community in India at the time could affect her in other areas of her life, such as her career.

Her parents have yet to accept her wife and four children, Mathoda said, and she laments being ostracized from her communities and family events.

This resistance against homosexuality as a part of Western culture has long existed in India. However, experts argue that it’s not homosexuality, but homophobia that was imported from the West. The arrival of British colonialism with its Victorian morals violently suppressed homosexuality in India, according to Rohit Dasgupta, a scholar of queer culture at the University of Glasgow.

Britain’s anti-sodomy laws subsequently became Section 377 in India, he added. “When it came to India in the guise of Section 377 for the first time, it put into statute that homosexuality is criminal.”

There is historical precedence in Indian culture that suggests homosexuality was accommodated, if not celebrated, Dasgupta said. Sculptures and monuments at historical sites such as Khajuraho and Konark are “examples of acceptance and accommodation within those ancient Indian cultures, which was completely wiped away through this subsequent bringing of Victorian morals.”

Nevertheless, the view persists that non-heterosexual relationships are not part of Indian culture. This was made clear to Aditya Gupta when he came out to his parents. Gupta used an alias and asked that his real name not be published because he fears for his physical safety during his visits to India.

“I come from a very conservative family. They’re Hindu nationalists and associate with organizations that identify with that ideology,” he said.

“They put me through religious conversion therapy. They told me they will take me to a doctor to get a hormone test. It was a violation of my individuality,” Gupta added.

So eight years ago, when homosexuality was still criminal in India, he requested his employer to transfer him to the United States.

“It was a self-imposed exile,” he said. “The decision was that I’m not going to come back.”

In India, his cash isn’t eligible to be shared with his partner, who is an Indian-born US citizen. But that’s just one obstacle to having the same rights as married heterosexual couples in the country. The couple now wants to start a family, and they want the child to be Indian too. But the country’s law places limitations on surrogacy, on adopting a child as a same-sex couple, and even on an unmarried male adopting a female child if Gupta were to apply as individual because his marriage in the US would not be recognized in the Indian government’s eyes.

While there are still many in India who oppose same-sex marriage, public attitudes have shown a shift over time to support LGBTQ rights.

There are Pride parades held in small and big cities all across India. LGBTQ India Resource lists nearly 30 parades on its website.

In her book “Bollywood’s India: Hindi Cinema as a Guide to Contemporary India,” author Rachel Dwyer, a scholar of Indian cinema and cultures, argues that Bollywood films over the last two decades have told stories that are a reliable guide to understanding the nation’s changing ideas.

And certainly, while films of the ’90s and early 2000s used LGBTQ characters as a comic factor or a tragic character, Bollywood has explored queer stories more seriously in recent years through films like “Badhaai Do,” which dives into lavender marriages and “Maja Ma,” which shows the suppression of queer desires — all set in small-town India instead of big, urban cities, as Dasgupta points out.

The Indian Supreme Court goes back in session in July after its summer break. A ruling in favor will also encourage Mathoda to apply for overseas citizen status in India for her four children, and give them the rights that children of heterosexual Indian parents are given.

For Gupta, the ruling may help him live out his dream of having a big wedding in India.

“We had always wanted to do a big fat Indian wedding. But over the years, with what we went through, it made us feel like ‘let’s get married, but we don’t have to tell.’ We yearn for a party, with our parents and siblings giving us their love and blessings,” he said, adding that he would invite them and tell them: “The law recognizes it. It’s on you now.”

It wasn’t too long ago that Coco Gauff exploded onto the scene as a 15-year-old, defeating Venus Williams at Wimbledon in 2019.

But time marches on and it was Gauff who was the experienced player on court on Saturday as she defeated 16-year-old Mirra Andreeva in a hard-fought battle between two of tennis’ most talented teenagers.

The American lost the first set in a tiebreak but rallied to dismantle Andreeva in the next two sets and take a 6-7 (5-7) 6-1 6-1 win to advance to the fourth round of the French Open.

“We practiced together this week, actually,” Gauff, still just 19, said afterwards, according to the Guardian. “I don’t know if it made a difference in the match – it’s all about adjustment, that’s tennis.

“Today wasn’t going to be an easy match, she deserves to be where she is and go even further.”

Andreeva celebrated her 16th birthday in April and became the youngest player to reach the third round at Roland Garros since 2005, according to the WTA.

And for the first 65 minutes of the match, it seemed as if Andreeva might continue her meteoric rise with a shock victory as she pummeled Gauff’s weaker forehand side with first serves and won the set’s tiebreak.

Despite her age, Gauff has already played in numerous French Open tournaments and reached the final last year. Armed with that experience, she reset, shored up her second serve, and harnessed her powerful backhand to ultimately outmaneuver Andreeva.

Gauff will now face the unseeded Anna Karolina Schmiedlova for a place in the tournament’s quarterfinals.

Elsewhere in the women’s draw, defending champion and world No.1 Iga Swiatek also reached the fourth round with an emphatic 6-0 6-0 win against China’s Wang Xinyu, while world No. 4 Elena Rybakina withdrew from the French Open citing an upper respiratory illness.

Barcelona Femení overcame a 2-0 deficit to defeat Wolfsburg 3-2 in a dramatic Women’s Champions League final and banish its disappointment from last year.

The only blemish on Barcelona’s all-conquering record these past few seasons was last year’s Champions League final, as it succumbed to a 3-1 defeat against Lyon, despite otherwise marauding through records and later becoming the first ever football team to win 50 consecutive league games.

Saturday’s final against Wolfsburg in Eindhoven, Netherlands was a chance for redemption, but 2-0 down at half time, it seemed that Barcelona would have to wait at least another year to secure a second Women’s Champions League trophy.

Wolfsburg took the lead after just three minutes when Ewa Pajor stole the ball from Barcelona defender Lucy Bronze and found the back of the net with a powerful strike for her ninth goal of this Champions League, the highest tally in this season’s tournament.

Barcelona had chances – Irene Paredes’ header floated inches wide of the goalpost and Caroline Graham Hansen couldn’t quite find the back of the net when she latched onto Leon’s cross – but it was Wolfsburg who struck next and doubled its lead.

Legendary forward Alexandra Popp timed her run to perfection as she headed in Pajor’s pass into the box for a record-equaling fourth goal in Women’s Champions League finals.

Paralluelo almost pulled one back for Barcelona just before halftime but for a brave, brilliant save Merle Frohms.

It was, however, a glimpse of Barcelona’s ruthless brilliance as it equalised with two goals from Patri Guijarro in quick succession just five minutes after half time to the delight of the Barcelona fans in the crowd.

“We made it hard for ourselves in the first half even though we created so many chances,” Bronze told Dazn afterwards.

“We knew we had enough quality to come back into any game. I don’t think we were ever worried about scoring three goals, which is a crazy feat to do, but that’s the talent within this team.”

The game continued at its frenetic pace but it was Barcelona who emerged victorious when Fridolina Rolfö scored the game-winning goal in the 70th minute after Wolfsburg’s defense made a series of errors when attempting to clear the ball.

Victory sealed Barcelona’s status as the dominant team in women’s European club soccer, as it claimed its second Champions League title in three years, joining an elite group of just six other teams who have won the trophy more than once.

Perfection can come in many forms and be interpreted in different ways. Manchester City has produced more polished performances under Pep Guardiola this season. There have been matches where the team has scored more and created more – yet City’s ability to dominate its opponent, to do enough to win when it matters is as perfect as it gets on a soccer pitch. It is why this team continues to chase history this season.

As the 2-1 scoreline would suggest, this FA Cup match between bitter rivals City and Manchester United was a tense affair. A victory for the blue side of Manchester was never a foregone conclusion. United had opportunities, yet City had the composure, the know-how, the class.

Two goals from captain İlkay Gündoğan – the first 12 seconds after kick off for the quickest in FA Cup history – secured a win which gave City its second trophy of the season and maintained the team’s quest to win the ‘treble’ of the Premier League, the FA Cup and the Champions League.

This Saturday Wembley, next Saturday Istanbul where City could become only the second English club to win all three major trophies in a season if it overcomes Inter Milan in the Champions League final. The other club to have achieved that feat? Manchester United in 1999, which helps explain why this was no ordinary FA Cup final.

For a competition which has arguably lost its luster over the years, the plot lines woven into this match stirred this oldest of cup ties back to the forefront of English soccer: a first FA Cup final between these two city rivals, one looking to defend its legacy, the other knowing victory would be a defining one during an era in which it has dominated English soccer.

Yet for all Pep Guardiola has achieved with City, the Premier League was wrapped up a few weeks ago for a fifth title in six seasons, and this was a second FA Cup – and 11th trophy overall – in his seven-year tenure, City has never won the Champions League. It is the trophy the club craves the most.

Such is the caliber of the team assembled by Guardiola, it is the favorite to win in Istanbul. After defeat United manager Erik ten Hag described Guardiola’s team as the best in the world and few would argue with that claim.

Only Inter Milan can now stop City from sporting immortality, making this defeat for United and its fans an especially bitter one.

“Now we can talk about the treble,” Guardiola told reporters after the match.

Guardiola had said before the match that United was a dangerous opponent because the club’s legacy was on the line, there were the achievements of the past to protect. Yet, while United was once the most ruthless accumulator of trophies in English soccer, dominating during those golden years under Alex Ferguson, this is the age of Guardiola’s City.

United still has global appeal, one which City does not yet match, and under manager Ten Hag the team has improved – it is now more consistent, qualifying for next season’s Champions League and winning the League Cup earlier in the season.

Though United only had three shots on target during the match, the Dutchman told reporters afterwards that he was happy with his side’s performance and that “on another day we could gave won this game.”

“I only have one plan and that is to improve this club and improve this team,” he added. “I will fight for it. I have my ideas, but also, as I said, I have to work with my staff, my players, I have to be better next season.”

But the truth is United has much to do to be a match for a City team which has finished above it in the league for the last 10 years. Arguably, there is too much for Ten Hag to do to turn United into a team that could contend with City for the title next season.

It seemed as if the gulf would become evident in the final scoreline of this match when City took a stunning lead, silencing the red half of the stadium on a sunny afternoon in London.

The sounds of the national anthem had yet to fully subside into the ether when City captain Gündoğan produced a moment of skill that will live long in the memory, putting City ahead with a sublime volley from outside the box with less than a minute played.

The move started with goalkeeper Stefan Ortega whose long kick was flicked on towards Kevin de Bruyne by Erling Haaland. The Belgian found Gündoğan and before United’s defense could calibrate the ball was in the back of the net.

City threatened to break loose thereafter – Haaland twice went close, while De Bruyne also took aim at an overworked David de Gea – but in the 33rd minute fortune favored United.

The Video Assistant Referee (VAR) deemed Jack Grealish had handled the ball in the penalty area, which allowed Bruno Fernandes to calmly side-foot home to level a match which had been threatening to go one way.

But just as in the first half, City exploded into action after the break – Gündoğan again putting Guardiola’s side ahead. It was another volley and though it scored less for artistic merit than his first, its importance nonetheless should not be underestimated because not only did it secure a league and FA Cup double for the second time in the club’s history, but it kept City on course for greatness.

Twenty minutes later, Gündoğan thought he had scored a hat-trick only for his goal to be ruled out for offside but, in the end, it didn’t matter.

It’s been just over 100 days since Nicaraguan opposition leader Felix Maradiaga was released from prison, along with at least 221 other political prisoners, and flown to the United States. His sudden release after 611 days of detention – many of them in solitary confinement, he says – came as a surprise both for Maradiaga and his wife Berta Valle.

“Around midnight, I just decided to go to bed and I said, ‘Well Lord, I give you my husband, take care of him. I’m so tired, I have to go to bed.’ Then in the morning, I woke up very early, and I received a phone call from someone from the State Department who said – ‘Look Berta, I’m calling you to tell you that your husband is flying right now in an airplane together with 221 political prisoners, and they’re going to Washington’,” she said.

“And I just started screaming! Imagine at six in the morning, I was just waking up everyone in the house.”

When Valle, a former journalist, could finally breathe normally, she asked the State Department if she should also make her way to Washington from Miami, where she is now based.

They said yes and she did. The rest of that day is a blur, she says.

“I just remember how incredibly relieved I was and how grateful. For me it was a miracle. I was expecting Félix to get out in maybe three, four years. And it had happened.”

Maradiaga’s release came after years of escalating repression by Nicaragua’s five-term President Daniel Ortega – who also stripped the former prisoners of their Nicaraguan nationality while they were in the air, en route to the US.

The authoritarian leader has imprisoned dozens of opposition figures and activists, particularly in the lead up to the last elections in November 2021. Many were accused of treason or involvement in “illicit activities” for having contact with foreign journalists or human rights’ organizations that the Ortega regime views as a threat.

“All the presidential candidates, plus the high ranking politicians arrested with me, were charged with the same accusation, ‘undermining national sovereignty, and conspiracy against national security,’” Maradiaga said. “The journalist and civil society leaders were charged with money laundering or producing fake news on cybercrimes and the less visible prisoners, like grassroots leaders were charged with a very diverse set of felonies.”

‘A unilateral decision’

Maradiaga had long been a thorn in the side of President Daniel Ortega for speaking out against the regime. As an opposition activist and civil society leader, he spoke out relentlessly against the regime’s crackdown on dissent.

“The conditions in the prison were terrible the first year and then towards the end of 2022, the other prisoners and myself started to have certain small prison conditions changed. For example, finally, after almost two years, I got – for the first time – on a phone call with my daughter, whom I had not seen for three years. We were also given food and encouraged to eat like they [the prison guards] wanted us to put on weight.”

“Then, on February 8, a guard came to our cell and said, ‘Dress!’ He gave me some clothing and then we boarded a bus, handcuffed, with no information. And then I arrived at the airport with the other prisoners from 11 different detention centers,” he recounted.

Maradiaga spotted an American diplomat at the airport who he had worked with before and that was when he realized he and the other prisoners were being flown to the United States.

“I got on my knees. I kissed the floor because I knew it was going to be a long time until my next return to Nicaragua, which will happen – I give you my word it will happen – and I boarded the plane,” he says defiantly.

US State Department spokesperson Ned Price said at the time that the decision to release the individuals, some of whom had spent years in prison, was “a unilateral decision that the Nicaraguan government took.”

The prisoners were made to sign a document acknowledging their willingness to fly to the United States and boarded a flight to Dulles International Airport in the early hours of February 9.

“It was the Nicaraguan government that decided to offer the opportunity to these individuals to travel to the United States,” Price said. “We agreed that we would of course receive them.”

Preparing for the worst

Maradiaga expected to be imprisoned – or worse – when he returned to Nicaragua in 2019, after a year in exile in the US.

As he saw other voices of dissent being arrested and thrown in prison, he set out to prepare his family for what could happen by recording a series of videos and instructions to sustain his wife and daughter if he were to suddenly disappear.

“When I received the notice of the attorney’s office that I needed to show myself, I had a call with Berta that we both recall perfectly. I told her that I was going to be arrested, but there was a big chance that I was going to be disappeared,” he said.

“So, I had to film a video – probably the hardest thing I’ve done – to try to explain to my six-year-old daughter, that if I got killed, that it was because of my principles and ask her to forgive me for that decision. But that it was the right thing to do.”

Maradiaga was ultimately arrested on June 8, 2021, having announced his intention to run for president four months earlier. He was investigated for various crimes and eventually sentenced to 13 years in prison for “conspiracy to undermine national integrity,” according to his lawyer.

In those first few months, Valle was angry.

She said that she felt like her husband had abandoned her and their daughter, especially as she had to deal with her daughter asking for him every night. But over time, and through speaking to victims of the Ortega regime whom her husband had helped, her anger and disappointment were replaced by admiration, she says.

The videos Maradiaga had left for her ended up being a lifeline, she also said.

“He gave me all these instructions. He gave me, for example, the name of our international human rights lawyer, Jared Genser, who became my angel through all of this. He gave me the contacts of the Geneva Summit and other organizations, that he said I should contact to advocate for his release.”

They were not able to break our souls, say freed Nicaraguan political prisoners

Maradiaga credits his wife’s advocacy alongside the work of these international human rights organizations as being instrumental to his release. He explains how the international outcry these organizations cause often makes the prisoner too much of a problem for the dictatorship and that can lead to a release of some sort.

“It’s not a magic bullet, but I saw from every single interrogation, every single interview was about the names of organizations. They were so concerned about the meetings of the UN, meetings of the Geneva Summit, the Oslo Freedom Forum, they had huge reports of all the traveling or the advocacy that Berta was doing.”

Although Maradiaga says he’s not yet ready to talk about the “dark” conditions he faced while in prison, he credits his Catholic faith and deep sense of purpose as the factors that kept him going while he was detained.

“When you give suffering a purpose and meaning, suffering is not necessarily something that is less bearable, but at least has a meaning. Deep in my heart I always knew that it was a matter of time. I told myself, Mr. Ortega is close to his 80s, I have much more time than he does, but also more faith. And that’s the important part.”

‘An audit of the heart.’

While both Maradiaga and his wife are elated to be reunited, they admit that it hasn’t been easy – and that there is a lot of work for them to do, both individually and as a family.

“It’s been really interesting the last three months to have back Félix at home, especially because we were living for three years together with my mother-in-law and [daughter] Alejandra. We have our own dynamic in the house, and then Félix comes and the dynamics change,” Valle says.

She explains that she had been hoping that they would be able to pause and spend time together as a family once he was released but that the reality has been very different.

Maradiaga has had requests for hundreds of interviews and speaking engagements since the moment he landed in the US. Both feel pressure to seize the moment to draw attention to the fight for freedom in Nicaragua – and trying to heal themselves and their family at the same time is a tough road to navigate, they say.

“Every single day in freedom for me is a joy,” Maradiaga says. “To see my daughter, her smile, every morning is a miracle. When I see Berta, food – I’ve gained 30 pounds since November last year – the smells, the air, sometimes we take it for granted. But there are people around the world, they just see a ray of light, sunshine, as a gift.”

“On the other hand, every single day that I’m free, someone else is in prison. Every single day that I’m free, my country is suffering repression. So that’s why I have a sense of urgency. So that’s what’s next, to free Nicaragua,” he says.

On Saturday, Nicaraguan police said they were investigating several dioceses of the Catholic Church for allegations of money laundering, a day after local media reported that the bank accounts of parishes in the Central American country had been frozen. This comes just weeks after the National Assembly of Nicaragua voted to dissolve the local branch of the Red Cross, as part of an ongoing clampdown on groups seen as hostile to the Ortega government.

The regime also suspended ties with the Vatican in March, shortly after Pope Francis compared his administration to the Nazi dictatorship of Adolf Hitler.

While he hasn’t yet had time to fully process his ordeal, Maradiaga is also aware of the need to juggle his commitment to fighting for freedom in Nicaragua with his personal healing.

“I think that dictators know that when they put people in prison, the human reaction is to come out with anger and bitterness,” he says.

“So in my case, I’ve been working very hard to do an audit of the heart, to try, so that my commitment to non-violence, my compassion, my commitment to civic resistance, remain untouched. It’s very important not to hate because if you want to build democracy and freedom out of hate, you will just replicate the same cycle.”

“Compassion doesn’t mean that we will not persecute crimes against humanity. But through the law, through the international system – not revenge – justice,” Maradiaga adds.

A symbol of hope

Maradiaga and Valle’s reunification has become a symbol of hope for many, and they also feel a responsibility to encourage that hope.

Both spoke at the Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy in May, where Maradiaga was awarded the 2023 Courage Award.

In his speech, Maradiaga vowed to use his platform to not only fight for a free and democratic Nicaragua, but to campaign for the freedom of political prisoners around the world.

“This is an award that belongs to those Nicaraguans who live in a huge prison. Those Nicaraguans without a voice. Those Nicaraguans who only are asking for the protection of basic human rights and human dignity. So this award not only recognizes the struggle for freedom in my own nation, but amplifies the voices of the silenced,” he told the summit.

“Do not let anyone tell you that it is not possible to free Vladimir Kara-Murza. Do not let anyone know that it’s not possible to release our dear barefoot lawyer from China. Do not let anyone tell you that it’s not possible to walk in full freedom in Hong Kong and Venezuela, in Cuba, in Afghanistan,” he continued. Kara-Murza, a Russian rights advocate, was sentenced to 25 years in prison after criticizing the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine.

“I am proposing an international convention that declares imprisonment of innocent people for expressing ideas, political opinions, faith, religion or belonging to a group as a crime against humanity.”@maradiaga, Nicaraguan opposition leader and former political prisoner pic.twitter.com/jqUKHUv8vA

— The Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy (@GenevaSummit) May 17, 2023

Valle, who spoke alongside her husband at the summit, used the opportunity to urge other families of political prisoners to seek out help, and stressing the importance of taking time to rest.

“I like this phrase that says that I’m here because I stand on the shoulders of giants. It’s very important to look for help, look for organizations, people that have had some experience in the situation that everyone is facing – that helped me a lot. And also faith,” says Valle, a devout born-again Christian.

“After all this work that we do as human rights defenders, there’s a private life that also has to be taken care of. We have to take moments to rest, to think, to pray if you are religious, because it’s important to protect ourselves first and then try to do things for others,” Valle added.

A horse died following a race at Belmont Park after sustaining an injury Thursday ahead of next week’s Triple Crown finale.

According to the Equibase race chart notes, 6-year-old horse Chaysenbryn suffered a right front leg injury after bumping into Dolce Sera nearing the quarter pole in the third race at Belmont Park.

The Rudy R. Rodriguez-trained Chaysenbryn had to be pulled up by jockey Joel Rosario and was euthanized on the track, according to the New York Gaming Commission.

Thursday’s incident marks the second for Rodriguez this week after three-year-old Midnight Empress had to be vanned off by an equine ambulance following the ninth race on Sunday.

Since January, Rodriguez has had four horses die, three at Aqueduct Racetrack and one at Belmont Park.

Chaysenbryn is the second horse to be euthanized following a race at Belmont Park since last month, after the Mertkan Kantarmaci-trained Reed Kan sustained an injury to the right front leg at the 16th pole while racing May 13.

McKenna said serious accidents and injuries on the NYRA’s tracks are “exceedingly rare.”

“The circumstances around any incident such as this will be closely reviewed and analyzed to ensure NYRA is providing the safest possible environment for racing and training,” he said.

Since last Saturday, two other horses have been euthanized following training sessions at the home of the Belmont Stakes.

According to the Gaming Commission, Troubling Moon was euthanized after suffering sudden cardiac arrest after working out on the track. Similarly, Battle Station was euthanized after working out on the main track before being pulled up past the wire as a result of an apparent injury.

The Belmont Stakes is scheduled June 10 at the track in Elmont.

Horse deaths have recently come under a spotlight following 12 deaths at Churchill Downs over the previous month. As a result, owners of the Kentucky Derby racetrack announced they would suspend all racing operations to conduct a “top-to-bottom” review of all safety and surface protocols.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has stretched his rule into a third decade after Sunday’s presidential election victory. His achievement, however, fell short of the city of Istanbul – a strategic and personal crown jewel the leader is determined to take back in 10 months’ time.

Speaking on top of a campaign bus outside his Istanbul residence on Sunday, Erdogan sang to a crowd of cheering supporters and declared his next step – to take back the city in the March 2024 municipal elections.

“Now we have 2024 ahead of us,” Erdogan said. “You understand what I am saying, don’t you? Are you ready to win both Uskudar (a large district in Istanbul) and Istanbul in the local elections in 2024? Then let’s not stop.”

By winning back Istanbul, Erdogan means having it governed by a mayor from his Justice and Development (AK) Party.

Once the capital of the Ottoman Empire, Istanbul is today Turkey’s largest and most populous city. It is the country’s economic powerhouse and home to nearly 16 million people, a quarter of the Turkish electorate.

The city was for 25 years run by an Islamist -party – first by the Welfare Party, of which Erdogan was a member, and then by the AK Party – until the secular Republican People’s Party (CHP) won its mayorship in 2019 under Ekrem Imamoglu. Before beginning his term as prime minister in 2003, Erdogan was himself mayor of Istanbul between 1994 and 1998.

A 52-year-old savvy businessman, Imamoglu is the city’s 32nd mayor and ran as a prospective vice president to opposition candidate Kemal Kilicdaroglu in this year’s presidential election.

Erdogan in 2019 quickly saw that he was up against a potential winner, said Berk Esen, an assistant professor of political science at Sabanci University in Istanbul.

Speaking Monday, amid celebrations for the 570th anniversary of the city’s Ottoman conquest, Imamoglu was keen to remind Erdogan that even though he won the presidential election, he still fell short of victory in his beloved Istanbul.

The opposition beat Erdogan by nearly three points in both Istanbul and Ankara in Sunday’s presidential runoff.

“If you’ve won an election and you’re still saying Istanbul’s name in your sleep, that’s okay. It’s fine to dream. But it won’t be a reality,” Imamoglu said in a speech during celebrations.

“Neither you nor your fabricated judicial decisions will ever take Istanbul over,” he said, adding that the city “has become an exemplary world capital where all faiths and cultures live together” and it is also the “center of justice, tolerance and respect for the law.”

Analysts said that Erdogan has taken a number of steps since 2019 to sideline Imamoglu, knowing that he would be the opposition’s strongest candidate.

A 2021 survey by MetroPoll showed that, if there was a presidential election in which Erdogan and Imamoglu both ran, the latter would win nearly 50% of the votes whereas Erdogan would win close to 39%.

Last year, however, Imamoglu was sentenced to two years, seven months and 15 days in prison and banned from political activity for insulting Turkey’s Supreme Electoral Council (YSK). Human Rights Watch had called the sentence “an unjustified and politically calculated assault on Turkey’s political opposition in the run up to 2023 elections.”

Imamoglu’s lawyers have said they intend to appeal the verdict, but if the decision is upheld then the mayor would not be allowed to participate in public office.

Erdogan “sidelined the one figure who might have been able to beat him, Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu,” wrote Soner Cagaptay, senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, in Foreign Affairs magazine.

“As a result, Imamoglu had little choice but to stay out of the [presidential] race to avoid triggering a blanket ban that would also oust him from the mayor’s office,” Cagaptay said.

It was not the first time Erdogan had cracked down on CHP members.

Last year, Turkey’s top court upheld a jail term against Canan Kaftancioglu, who heads CHP’s Istanbul branch, on charges of insulting the president.

Esen says that “there is no question” that Erdogan wants to get rid of Imamoglu, but that it remains unclear whether he will do so by trying to appeal to the electorate in the 2024 municipal election, or whether he will “engage in an extra-legal operation to purge Imamoglu, to basically replace him with a state appointee.”

It remains to be seen how Erdogan will take back Turkey’s commercial and electoral center. From bringing back the country’s quake-stricken south to revitalizing a plummeting economy, the leader still faces substantial challenges.

But the opposition, too, is in a poor shape.

“Following this election defeat, if the opposition parties do not get their house in order and continue to cooperate but in a very rational and a very strategic way, some opposition voters may get disillusioned and turn away from electoral politics completely,” Esen said.

Speaking Tuesday at the Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges, Erdogan criticized the opposition’s campaign promises, saying they were only made to “get through the elections.”

“You have more than 10 metropolitan mayors, what have they accomplished in Istanbul? In Ankara? In Izmir? Go ahead and prove what they have done,” Erdogan said. “I live in Istanbul and Ankara. I follow Izmir closely.”

Apart from its strategic importance, Istanbul also holds personal value for Erdogan. It is where he was born and where he began his political career and continues to maintain a residence.

Erdogan’s Istanbul mayorship “really springboarded him into national prominence.” Esen said. “The statement of ‘whoever wins Istanbul wins Turkey’ is not an exaggeration.”

Two journalists responsible for breaking the story of Mahsa Amini, the Kurdish-Iranian woman killed after being held in custody by Iran’s morality police last year, stood trial in an Iranian court this week.   

Niloufar Hamedi and Elaheh Mohammadi have been imprisoned in Iran for the past eight months and face charges of “conspiracy and rebellion against national security” and “anti-state propaganda” – charges carrying a possible death penalty, according to Reporters Without Borders (RSF).

The two women separately stood trial on Monday and Tuesday in a revolutionary court presided over by notorious judge Abolghasem Salavati, according to Iranian pro-reform outlet SharghDaily.

The trial comes after nationwide protests rocked Iran last fall, as anger over the regime’s treatment of women and other issues flared up after the death of 22-year-old Amini.

Authorities violently suppressed the months-long movement, which had posed one of the biggest domestic threats to Iran’s ruling clerical regime in more than a decade.

Hamedi was arrested after visiting Amini in hospital and reporting on her serious medical condition and coma after she was in police custody, according to RSF.

SharghDaily said Hamedi was denied access to lawyers for most of her detention, while the UN said the journalist has been held in solitary confinement in the notorious Evin Prison since September.

In her trial on Tuesday, Hamedi denied all accusations and highlighted her journalistic duties within the law, her husband, Mohammad Hossein Ajorloo, wrote on Twitter.

Mohammadi, who also stood trial in a separate hearing, was arrested after reporting on Amini’s funeral in September, according to RSF and the UN.

The families of the journalists were informed of the charges seven months after the arrests were made, RSF said.

Hamedi, Mohammadi and another detained journalist, Narges Mohammadi, were awarded the prestigious 2023 UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize for outstanding contribution to press freedom.

“We are committed to honoring the brave work of Iranian female journalists,” Zainab Salbi, the jury Chair, said according to a UN statement, adding “They paid a hefty price for their commitment to report on and convey the truth.”

The Iranian government has continued to clamp down on dissent with several recent death sentences handed down to protesters. Critics say the regime has taken capital punishment to a new level.