International

Brazil town aspires to be champion of Bolsonaro vote

Photo: Nelson Almeida / AFP

| By AFP | Anna Pelegri |

On Holy Christ Avenue, in front of Bible Square, Brazilian businessman Gilberto Klais buoyantly hops out of an SUV decorated with a giant decal of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro.

Smiling in a denim shirt, the 39-year-old head of the local business owners’ association is a man on a mission: “On election day, the town of Nova Santa Rosa will cast more votes for Bolsonaro than anywhere else in Brazil,” he says.

The small town in the southern state of Parana already voted massively for the incumbent in Brazil’s first-round election on October 2, casting 82 percent of its ballots for Bolsonaro — the second-highest percentage in the country.

Now, as the president heads for a runoff Sunday against veteran leftist Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Bolsonaro backers are pushing for an even bigger win.

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But this small community of trim little houses surrounded by endless expanses of soy and corn fields has some tough competition, in one of Brazil’s most conservative regions.

The neighboring towns of Quatro Pontes and Mercedes finished third and fifth in the Bolsonaro love fest, voting 80 percent and 78 percent for the former army captain, respectively.

And the town of Nova Padua, in neighboring Rio Grande do Sul state, cast the highest percentage for him with 84 percent.

“Bolsonaro lit our flame for Brazil,” says Klais, who owns a local bakery.

Visitors don’t have to look far for proof: a sea of yellow-and-green Brazilian flags hangs from buildings — a symbol Bolsonaro has adopted as his own — and his smiling face beams from campaign posters all over town.

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Opponents’ criticisms of the president — Brazil’s 687 000 deaths from Covid-19, increasing hunger, destruction of the Amazon rainforest — are mute here.

Finding a Lula campaign sign is an impossible task.

Farming is king in these parts, and Bolsonaro, a close ally of Brazil’s powerful agribusiness sector, “has given us security to invest,” promotes “a strong economy,” and upholds God and family “as the supreme good,” says Klais.

“He’s just like us.”

Battle for Brazil’s soul

On his father’s farm, where a feed truck has been turned into a makeshift billboard with Bolsonaro’s slogan — “Brazil above everything, God above everyone” — Ricardo Lorenzatto is on a mission, too: convince at least 200 of the 800 residents who voted for Lula to switch sides in the runoff.

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Bolsonaro “promised to visit the city that casts the highest percentage of votes for him,” says the 35-year-old agricultural engineer, his blue eyes alight.

“My heart leaps just thinking about it.”

He is active on WhatsApp message groups rallying the faithful for pro-Bolsonaro events, such as an Independence Day motorcade on September 7, which, he proudly boasts, stretched four kilometers (2.5 miles).

Lorenzatto says ex-president Lula (2003-2010), who the far-right labels a “communist,” is a threat to his children’s future.

If Lula wins, “indigenous tribes could invade our land, force us to share our cattle,” he says.

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Holding her one-year-old grandson on her porch, Clarice Radoll agrees.

“I would feel very insecure if Lula won,” says the 60-year-old Evangelical Christian, who has Bolsonaro’s picture proudly displayed on the front of her house.

In this town of a dozen churches and around 6,000 inhabitants, Radoll repeats a line often used by conservative pastors: that Lula represents “moral perversion.”

“It’s every Brazilian mother and father’s fear,” she says.

Agribusiness hero

In Mercedes, just up the road, farmer Andre Fiedler admits Lula’s government also took care of the agribusiness industry during the economic boom of the 2 000s.

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“I don’t want to be a hypocrite,” he says.

But Bolsonaro’s administration has backed farming and agricultural exports like no other, “opening new markets for our products,” he says.

He brushes off international criticism over surging Amazon deforestation under Bolsonaro, which experts say is driven by agriculture.

“People say Bolsonaro is damaging Brazil’s image overseas… but that’s just a trade game — protectionism by France, Germany, the United States,” Fiedler says.

“Who’s the biggest soy producer in the world? The biggest poultry exporter? Brazil,” he says.

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“There are vested interests trying to hold us back.”

Bolsonaro, who took 43 percent of the vote in the first round to 48 percent for Lula, trails his leftist rival heading into the runoff — but by a narrowing margin, according to opinion polls.

International

Three U.S. Executions Set for Same Day as Trump Pushes to Expand Death Penalty

The death penalty has been abolished in 23 of the 50 U.S. states, while three others —California, Oregon and Pennsylvania— currently have moratoriums in place.

The United States is set to carry out three executions on the same day, a rare occurrence that has not happened since 2010, according to the nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center.

President Donald Trump has sought to expand the use of capital punishment for what he describes as “the most heinous crimes.” In April, the Department of Justice proposed expanding execution methods to include firing squads, lethal gas and electrocution.

Tennessee is scheduled to execute Anthony Darrell Dugard Hines, 66, on Thursday. He was sentenced to death for the 1985 murder of a woman, according to local media.

In Oklahoma, Carlos Cuesta-Rodríguez, 70, is scheduled to be executed for a 2003 murder.

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Meanwhile, Alabama plans to execute Jeremy Williams, 42, who was sentenced to death for the rape and murder of a five-year-old girl.

The United States carried out 47 executions in 2025, the highest number since 2009, when 52 executions were recorded.

Florida conducted the largest number of executions last year, with 19, followed by Alabama, South Carolina and Texas, with five each.

Of the executions carried out in 2025, 39 were conducted by lethal injection. Three were carried out by firing squad and five through nitrogen hypoxia, a method that involves forcing nitrogen gas into a face mask, depriving the prisoner of oxygen.

The United Nations has condemned nitrogen gas as a cruel and inhumane method of capital punishment.

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International

Colombia Earthquake Death Toll Reaches 265 as Rescue Teams Race Against Time

The 7.4-magnitude earthquake that struck Colombia on Monday, the strongest to hit the country this century, has so far left 265 people dead and around 3,500 injured.

In Cali, Pereira and other cities in western Colombia, rescue teams are working around the clock as they search for survivors. The first 72 hours following the earthquake will be reached at 7:34 a.m. local time (12:34 GMT), a critical window for rescue efforts as the chances of finding survivors generally decline significantly after that point.

Among those anxiously awaiting news is Valeria Cardona, a 26-year-old student searching for two of her cousins in Cali.

“We have some suspicions about their location, but there are no signs of life,” she said. “Hope is the last thing you lose, but we are anxious about receiving news we don’t want to hear.”

A team of members from the Topos Aztecas, the renowned Mexican volunteer rescue group, has also arrived in Cali to join the search. The rescuers had been working in neighboring Venezuela, where a double earthquake on June 24 left more than 6,000 people dead.

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“We all came from Venezuela, from La Guaira. The 41 days we spent working there made us stronger because we overcame hunger, pain and sleepless nights,” said Héctor Méndez, 80, president of Topos Aztecas.

Méndez encouraged those affected by the disaster not to lose hope and emphasized the commitment required from rescue teams during an emergency.

“Do not feel like victims. This is not an office or workshop schedule. This is real life, where the best part of the human spirit emerges. These are things of nature that happen,” he said.

International

German Authorities Investigate More Than 100 New Cases Against Convicted Nurse

German authorities announced Monday that they are investigating more than 100 additional cases involving a nurse who was sentenced to life in prison in November for the murder of 10 patients.

The man, who was 44 at the time of his conviction, worked in palliative care at a hospital in Würselen, near Aachen. He was also found guilty of 27 attempted murders.

Aachen prosecutors are now examining 121 new cases, a spokesperson for the office said.

Prosecutors leading the investigation are preparing a new indictment that could be filed next year. Nearly 40 bodies have so far been exhumed as part of the investigation, which covers alleged incidents dating back to September 2022.

Meanwhile, prosecutors in the city of Cologne are investigating 18 additional cases. According to a spokesperson, the oldest case dates back to 2010.

Before working at the Würselen hospital, the nurse is believed to have worked at a clinic in eastern Cologne, according to local media reports.

At the time of his November conviction, the court ruled that the severity of his crimes was particularly serious, a finding that would make it difficult for him to obtain early release after 15 years in prison.

Between December 2023 and May 2024, the nurse administered overdoses of sedatives or painkillers to terminally ill patients, most of them elderly, according to the indictment in the original case.

His alleged motive was to sedate patients who required care so that he could minimize his workload during night shifts, prosecutors said.

According to the indictment, the nurse worked «without enthusiasm» and «without motivation». When faced with patients requiring extensive care, he allegedly became «irritated» and showed a lack of empathy.

The case has revived painful memories in Germany of Niels Högel, a former nurse and serial killer who was sentenced to life imprisonment in June 2019 for the murders of at least 85 patients.