The week at a glance...Americas

Toronto

Transgender rights: Donald Trump, owner of the Miss Universe pageant, has overturned a decision by pageant officials to bar a transgender Canadian contestant from competing. Jenna Talackova had been named one of 65 finalists for next month’s Miss Universe Canada competition, but two weeks ago she was kicked out after the pageant discovered she was not born female. Talackova, who says she has felt female since age 4, had gender-reassignment surgery four years ago at age 19, and her legal documents now list her as a woman. She promptly hired prominent feminist lawyer Gloria Allred and went to the media, and this week Trump’s spokesperson said she could compete “as long as she meets the standards of legal gender recognition requirements of Canada, which we understand that she does.”

Nacozari, Mexico

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Death cult: Mexico’s cult of La Santa Muerte, or Holy Death, has turned murderous. Police arrested eight people last week, all allegedly followers of the cult, for the ritual sacrifice of two boys and a woman over the past four years. “They sliced open the victims’ veins and, while they were still alive, they waited for them to bleed to death and collected the blood in a container,” said José Larrinaga, a spokesman for Sonora state prosecutors. The cult, which mixes Catholic and indigenous beliefs, has become much less secretive over the past decade, and has spread in working-class neighborhoods and shantytowns until it now numbers some 2 million followers. Before these murders, the cult was not known to practice human sacrifice.

Bogotá, Colombia

Hostages released: In what could be a sign that they are moving toward peace, Colombia’s FARC rebels this week released 10 police officers and soldiers they had been holding in the jungle for more than 12 years. The release comes on top of the FARC’s recent promise to stop kidnapping people for ransom, which has been its main source of funds besides drug cultivation. The group has been waging a guerrilla war against the government for 50 years, first as a communist movement and later as a criminal gang. “It will be months before we know if the FARC is going to keep its word,” said Adam Isacson, an analyst with the Washington Office on Latin America. “Nobody can agree even on how many people they continue to hold.”

Buenos Aires

Falklands anniversary: Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner commemorated the 30th anniversary of the war over the Falkland Islands by honoring the fallen Argentine soldiers who “always marched toward the enemy and bravely faced their fear.” She condemned British Prime Minister David Cameron’s statement that the U.K. had preserved the “freedom” of the islanders. While acknowledging that the Argentine invasion was “pushed by a military junta,” Kirchner said the U.K. is “totally absurd to claim sovereignty over a territory that’s more than 14,000 kilometers away.” British forces turned back the 1982 invasion of the islands after a 74-day war in which 649 Argentines, 255 British troops, and three Falkland Islanders were killed.