The week at a glance...Americas

last updated 8 January 2015

Colorado River Delta, Mexico

River returns: Water is flowing in the Mexican part of the Colorado River for the first time in decades. Dams, including the Hoover Dam and the Morelos Dam, usually keep most of the river’s water in the U.S. and divert some to Tijuana and surrounding farmland. But last week, the joint U.S.-Mexican International Boundary and Water Commission authorized a big water release into the old river channel that meets the sea, as part of a five-year plan to revitalize the delta. The five-day gush, intended to mimic a spring flood from snowmelt, attracted birds and other wildlife, as well as thrilled residents. “I’m just so happy,” farmer and environmentalist Juan Butron told the Los Angeles Times. “Areas that were once desert are now filled with water.”

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Facebook murder: The fatal stabbing of one teenage girl by another has sparked a debate in Mexico about social media. Erandy Gutiérrez, 16, was furious at her friend Anel Báez, also 16, because Báez posted nude pictures of her on Facebook. “It may seem that I am very calm, but in my head I have killed you at least three times,” Gutiérrez wrote on Twitter months before the murder. Last month she went to Báez’s home, ostensibly to make up, and stabbed the girl 65 times, afterward tweeting, “God, what have I done?” Gutiérrez was arrested at Báez’s funeral and confessed.

Fears of rationing: As food shortages proliferate, Venezuelans are now being given ID cards so they can buy groceries. Shoppers will register with their fingerprints. The government said the new cards, to be used only at government-run supermarkets, are intended to track purchases to prevent people from buying up subsidized food and then reselling it on the black market. But critics fear the program marks the beginning of Cuban-style rationing. A combination of currency controls, which foil imports, and price controls, which discourage production, has produced shortages of such staples as milk, toilet paper, and cooking oil.

Massive quake: A magnitude-8.2 earthquake struck off the coast of Chile this week, killing six people and sending thousands fleeing a tsunami warning. Most of the shaking was in a sparsely populated area, but a women’s prison in Iquique was damaged, and some 300 inmates escaped. Geologists said the massive event was probably not the “Big One” that they are expecting in the area. Scientists remain concerned that this may prove to be a “foreshock” to a potentially more powerful earthquake.

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