International
Boulos, the housing activist who wants to reconquer São Paulo for the left
Guilherme Boulos, an activist in favor of the right to housing who has advocated occupying abandoned land, will seek this Sunday to become mayor of São Paulo and reconquer the largest city in South America for a left harassed by Bolsonaro.
It is the final stretch of the campaign for the most important municipal election in Brazil and the 42-year-old candidate has just climbed on a podium in front of the imposing City Hall building, in the center.
He wears a neat beard, which gives Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva an air as a young man, and a white shirt in a suit but without a tie, which makes him look like an office worker. An image of boring normality with which he tries to compensate for his past as an activist.
“Many are frightened by my career in social movements. I ask you here for a vote of confidence,” Boulos begins, to the applause of a handful of followers.
Boulos, after São Paulo
The candidate, supported by President Lula, is behind in the polls against the current mayor, Ricardo Nunes, supported by former far-right president Jair Bolsonaro.
He has been the victim of a campaign of hoaxes by the right that accused him, among other things, of snifing cocaine and wanting to invade private property.
Faced with that, he repeats over and over again that he is not a drug addict and that the movement he led only occupied abandoned land of large owners.
His program includes the promise of building 50,000 social housing units in a city whose homeless population has skyrocketed since the pandemic and exceeds 60,000 people.
It also promises to create support points so that app drivers can rest and expand the network of health posts to end the waiting lines.
“How can such a rich city have hungry people? We have neighborhoods with the quality of life of Sweden and others with that of the poorest countries in the world,” he exclaims.
Beginnings in activism
Son of doctors and private school student, Boulos did not seem destined to become the promise of the Brazilian left.
In his teens, however, he asked his parents to move him to a public school, where he set up a student union.
At the age of 19, when he was already studying Philosophy at university, he left home to live in a building occupied by the Homeless Workers Movement, of which he later became a leader.
“When he entered the social movements, it was realized,” Marcos Boulos, father of the candidate and renowned infectious disease specialist, recently told the newspaper Folha de São Paulo.
In politics
From activism he jumped to politics with the Socialism and Freedom Party, with which he tried unsuccessfully to win the Mayor’s Office of São Paulo in 2020. In 2022, he was elected a federal deputy with the second highest vote in the country.
Two years later, the lack of names with traction in the Workers’ Party led Lula to choose him as a candidate for elections that are a warm-up for the 2026 presidential elections.
Cíntia Martins, a 45-year-old volunteer who is on the spot in front of the City Hall, hopes that she will be elected.
“I’ve been following him since before entering politics and I like how he treats the most humble… We know that he is from the real neighborhood, even if he is the son of doctors,” he tells EFE, while waving a campaign flag.
At the end of his speech, Boulos raises his fist, says “until victory, God willing,” and gets into the van with which he will travel the suburbs until the day of the election.
“I’ve already backpacked and I’ll only go home on the weekend,” he says, before closing the door.
International
Erin brings strong winds and storm surge despite weakening offshore
Hurricane Erin weakened to a Category 2 storm on Tuesday but continues to pose a threat to parts of the U.S. East Coast with potentially dangerous flooding, according to meteorologists.
Although the hurricane’s eye is expected to remain offshore, experts are concerned about Erin’s size, as strong winds extend hundreds of kilometers beyond the storm’s center.
In its 18:00 GMT bulletin, the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) lifted tropical storm warnings for the Bahamasand Turks and Caicos Islands, but kept them in effect for parts of North Carolina.
Erin was located several hundred kilometers southeast of North Carolina and was moving northwestward.
“This means there is a risk of potentially life-threatening flooding of 60 to 120 centimeters above ground level,” said NHC Director Michael Brennan.
He also warned of the possibility of destructive waves, combined with storm surge, that could cause severe damage to beaches and coastal areas, making roads impassable.
International
Three U.S. Warships deploy near Venezuela to combat drug trafficking
Three U.S. naval vessels are moving toward the coasts of Venezuela, according to international media reports on Tuesday, after White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt confirmed that President Donald Trump is ready to combat and curb international drug trafficking.
Reports indicate that the ships will reach Venezuelan waters within the next 36 hours as part of a recent U.S. deployment aimed at countering international narcotics operations.
The announcement coincides with Leavitt’s statement that Trump is prepared to “use the full extent of his power” to halt drug flows into the United States. The naval deployment involves approximately 4,000 military personnel.
“The President has been clear and consistent. He is ready to use every element of U.S. power to prevent drugs from flooding our country and to bring those responsible to justice. The Maduro regime is not the legitimate government of Venezuela—it is a narco-terror cartel,” the spokesperson said during a press conference.
International
Cuban authorities free salvadoran convicted in 1997 hotel bombing
Salvadoran national Otto René Rodríguez Llerena was released after serving a 30-year prison sentence for his involvement in a terrorist attack at a hotel in Cuba in 1997, the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported.
During his trial, Rodríguez Llerena admitted to placing an explosive device at the Meliá Cohiba Hotel under the orders of anti-Castro exile leaders. He was arrested the following year when he returned to Havana with another load of explosives that failed to detonate.
“The Cuban government reiterates its commitment to combating terrorism, respecting human rights, and the need for the international community to hold accountable those who promote such acts,” the statement read.
He was released on August 15 and is the second Salvadoran to complete his sentence. In December of last year, another Salvadoran, Ernesto Cruz León, was released after planting bombs at tourist centers, one of which killed an Italian tourist identified as Fabio Di Celmo.
A third Salvadoran, Francisco Chávez Abarca, also received a 30-year sentence from Cuban courts in 2010 after being extradited from Venezuela through Interpol for actions against Cuba.
Rodríguez Llerena had requested conditional release in 2016, arguing that his actions had not caused any direct fatalities, but no further information was released about his situation until now.
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