The world at a glance . . . Americas

Mexico City

Money flows northward: In a sign of the recession’s severity in the U.S., Mexicans have begun sending money to their relatives north of the border, instead of the other way around. The so-called “reverse remittances,” once extremely rare, are becoming more common as Mexicans who moved to the U.S. for work have lost their jobs. “We haven’t been able to measure it,” banker Martín Zuvire Lucas told The New York Times, “but we hear of more cases where money is going north.” Banks do measure the money sent from Mexicans in the U.S. to their families back home, and they say that amount has dropped by more than 13 percent since last year.

Rio de Janeiro

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What caused the blackout? Officials in Brazil still don’t know what caused a massive blackout that left half the country without power for three hours last week. The government of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva initially blamed a storm, saying that lightning had shorted out the country’s largest power plant. But satellite data shows that there had been no strong lightning in the area at the time. With international media questioning Brazil’s ability to host the 2016 Olympics, Lula this week announced a government investigation into the outage. “We will have the truth and only the truth,” he said.

Buenos Aires, Argentina

First gay wedding: Argentina has become the first Latin American country to sanction gay marriage. Jose Maria Di Bello and his partner, Alex Freyre, won the right to get married when a judge ruled last week that the ban on gay marriage violated Argentina’s constitution. “On Dec. 1, we will become man and man,” said a tearful Di Bello. The mayor of Buenos Aires, Mauricio Macri, said the city would not appeal the ruling—which means that more gay weddings are likely in the heavily Catholic country. “We have to live with and accept this reality,” Macri said. “The world is moving in this direction.” Di Bello and Freyre are a highly prominent couple in the capital: Freyre is head of the AIDS Foundation, and Di Bello is an executive with the Argentine Red Cross.