A new era has dawned in Colombia with conservative leader Abelardo de la Espriella taking the presidential oath on Friday. He aims to dismantle the leftist policies of his predecessor, Gustavo Petro, by promising to adopt a stricter stance on security, revamp economic strategies, and mend ties with the United States.

Widely recognized by his moniker “El Tigre,” de la Espriella’s rise to power represents a major political transformation in Latin America. Following four years under Petro’s “Total Peace” initiative, which saw a surge in coca production and deteriorating diplomatic relations with the U.S., de la Espriella is tasked with turning his campaign rhetoric into tangible government actions.

The inauguration was a significant affair attended by conservative leaders from the region, including Argentina’s Javier Milei, Ecuador’s Daniel Noboa, and Chile’s José Antonio Kast. Todd Blanche, the Acting U.S. Attorney General, represented the United States. Also in attendance were Spain’s King Felipe VI and FIFA President Gianni Infantino, as noted by The Associated Press.

Addressing the nation from the Pichincha Battalion military base in Cali, De La Espriella declared, “I have come to close a long chapter of national resignation and, together with the people, embark on the most profound transformation of our destiny,” as reported by Reuters.

“I send a firm message to the Colombian people: The time has come to restore order, authority, and freedom.”

Reuters said one of his first acts as president was to join The Shield of the Americas, founded by President Donald Trump.

For the U.S., Colombia remains its closest security partner in South America, a key trading ally and one of the region’s largest recipients of U.S. security assistance. Hundreds of American companies operate in Colombia, while the country’s security conditions directly affect regional migration, organized crime and narcotics trafficking.

On foreign policy, the new president has committed to rebuilding strategic ties with the United States, restoring close cooperation with Israel and adopting a tougher stance toward the authoritarian governments of Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua.

Whether those commitments produce measurable improvements, however, will depend on resources that remain in short supply. Camilo Guzmán, executive director of Libertank, told News Media that the country’s financial situation will define what the administration can realistically accomplish.

“President de la Espriella inherits a house with the roof leaking and the safe empty. The order matters because almost everything he promised requires money he does not have.” Guzmán pointed to Colombia’s deteriorating fiscal position as the administration’s most immediate challenge.

“Start with the fiscal picture. It is worse than his own team seems to expect. The 2026 deficit is tracking around 6.5-6.7% of GDP, the financing gap is close to $34 billion and the implicit medium-term adjustment being left on his desk is near five points of GDP. It is also a cash problem, not only an accounting one. Before he governs, he must make payroll.”

The International Monetary Fund projects Colombia’s economy will grow by only about 2.3% this year while inflation remains elevated, limiting the government’s room to finance new security initiatives or major economic reforms without additional spending cuts or new revenue measures.

Security presents an equally daunting challenge. Violence has intensified across several regions as criminal organizations and guerrilla groups have expanded their territorial influence over the past several years.

Guzmán said, “Security is the second fire. The first half of 2026 closed with the highest homicide count for any first semester in a decade, extortion still rising and armed groups that have grown sharply since 2022. Security is rebuilt in years, not in quarters. Expect operations, captures and hard rhetoric in the first 100 days, visible and real, but not yet structural.”

Even if the administration moves quickly on executive actions, its legislative agenda will depend on building consensus in a fragmented Congress. Although De la Espriella won the presidency, his party controls only five seats in the Senate, while Petro’s Historic Pact remains the largest individual political bloc. Passing security reforms, fiscal legislation and broader economic initiatives will require negotiations with centrist and traditional parties on virtually every major proposal.

Guzmán believes those political realities may prove just as important as the security challenges. “He won the election; he did not win Congress. The July fight over the Senate presidency was the first warning. He has a coalition that is numerically large and poorly disciplined. His agenda will be negotiated bill by bill.”

REPUBLICAN REP MARÍA ELVIRA SALAZAR DECLARES, ‘AFTER CUBA, NICARAGUA IS NEXT’

For that reason, analysts caution against measuring the administration’s success solely by immediate results. Instead, the first 100 days are likely to be judged by whether the new president establishes credibility, assembles an effective governing team and demonstrates that campaign promises can evolve into a coherent governing strategy.

Guzmán concluded, “The realistic expectation is this: the first 100 days will produce signals, not results. Appointments, decrees, an emergency spending cut, a tax bill, a security package. Meanwhile, expectations are enormous, and the distance between what people were promised and what is physically possible in 100 days is the main political risk he faces. He will spend those 100 days putting the house in order. He should say so out loud, and early. Credibility is the one asset he can build by day 100.”

The decisions investors and policymakers will watch most closely include whether De la Espriella formally abandons Petro’s negotiations with the ELN, resumes aerial coca fumigation, expands intelligence and security cooperation with Washington, restores full diplomatic engagement with Israel and introduces a credible fiscal adjustment plan.

Those early moves, analysts say, will offer the clearest indication of whether Colombia’s new president can begin delivering on his promise to reverse the Petro era, or whether the country’s fiscal, political and security realities will force him to scale back one of the most ambitious conservative agendas in modern Colombian politics.

It seems we have yet another glaring example of how some homeless nonprofits are exploiting LA taxpayers.

This recent revelation sheds light on the issue:

According to media coverage, Carol Adelkoff, who serves as the CEO of 1736 Family Crisis Center, has reportedly received over $1.6 million in compensation over the past two years. Surprisingly, much of this time was spent in the luxury of Hawaii.

Adelkoff is apparently residing long-term in a spacious 3,700-square-foot home in Hawaii, while she claims to be at the helm of a nonprofit organization based in Los Angeles and Orange County.

The appropriate word that springs to mind for this situation is shameless.

While Adelkoff lived large in the land of mai tais and tropical breezes, the addicts of Skid Row just kept spiraling. 

Obvious question: Where’s the oversight from City Hall? (Hold the laughter, please.)

Mayor Karen Bass, City Council Housing and Homeless Committee Chairwoman Nithya Raman and the rest of the council need to get a grip on what taxpayers are actually getting for the billions of dollars the city pours into the homelessness crisis.

The answer the comes to mind? Bupkis. Per the most recent homeless count by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, homelessness in LA climbed by 3.4% — despite the obscene amount of money the city dumps on the problem.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration has suspended funding to LAHSA — which LA merrily continues to fund –– amid allegations of fraud and financial mismanagement. The homeless authority has made a desperate plea in court to reclaim the frozen federal funds, The California Post reported this week.

The entire mess is an embarrassment as large as Skid Row, which consumes an astonishing 50 blocks of Los Angeles.

Yet off in the land of hula, mango and poke, Adelkoff gorges on taxpayer dollars. 

About 94% of the $15 million a year her nonprofit collects flows from taxpayers, per the organization’s tax filings.

It should go without saying: All but a tiny fraction of those millions should go toward ending homelessness, rather than personally enriching the CEO.

Yes, nonprofit leaders should draw a fair salary. But homeless-services executive is a humble job –– or should be. 

It should be about serving others, not serving oneself.

It should be about pulling others out of misery, not living in luxury oneself.

And it should be about guiding homeless services on the ground here in California, not phoning it in from across an ocean.

Even if Adelkoff works 70 hours a week, as she claims, the math — $1.6 million for her, misery for the 45,000 Angelenos living on the streets — doesn’t work.

Nor does it matter whether or not her massive payout was juiced by unused vacation time. 

Either way, it smacks of the homeless-industrial-complex racket: Nonprofits have an incentive to entrench, rather than reduce, homelessness — all the better to keep the tax-funded largesse flowing.

It’s way past time for Bass, Raman and the council to clean up the messes  they’ve allowed and created: both on the streets and in the C-suites of homeless-aid groups.

A lawsuit claims that a man with Down syndrome was allegedly left stranded in a metro station near Washington DC for six days because a transit worker was preoccupied with their phone and failed to assist him.

Rashawn Williams, a 33-year-old resident of Potomac, boarded a Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) train just after midnight on October 21, 2023. He had departed from a hotel where he was being cared for by WeAchieve, a supervision service.

Upon the train’s termination of service at Glenmont station, Williams was instructed to disembark and informed that no further trains would be arriving, as outlined in a lawsuit filed in January.

Attempting to exit, Williams ascended the escalators to the fare gate but was unable to leave. He patiently awaited assistance at the gate while a WMATA employee, stationed in a nearby booth, was engaged in a personal phone conversation for over half an hour, according to the lawsuit.

Unable to exit, Williams eventually ventured deeper into the station and tried to escape through an emergency door. This door led to a room which was meant to be inspected daily but was locked from the outside.

Williams then exited through another door in the room, which led to a stairwell, where he was found six days later by a police officer and the station manager, the lawsuit, filed in the District of Maryland, said. 

The 33-year-old was found covered in urine and feces, with an infestation of insects in his hair, and was ‘severely dehydrated, physically depleted, and in poor condition,’ the lawsuit said. 

‘The conditions that Rashawn endured were dire, as he spent the entirety of his unnecessary confinement in complete darkness, isolated and vulnerable,’ it said. 

He was taken to the hospital to be treated for dehydration, but his family said he suffered long-term symptoms, such as being scared of the dark, having a disrupted sleeping pattern, and waking up in distress, the lawsuit said. 

Jimmy and Christina Hall, Williams’ guardians, are blaming WeAchieve and WMATA for not following protocol. 

The family said the WeAchieve guardian assigned to look after Williams and other members failed to go after the 33-year-old, despite realizing he had left the hotel where they were staying. 

They also accused WeAchieve of failing to promptly notify them that Williams went missing for more than an hour. 

‘Defendant WeAchieve, Inc., and its agents, servants and employees, all of whom were acting within the course and scope of their employment, negligently failed to exercise reasonable care and skill,’ the lawsuit read. 

Judge Paula Xinis denied WMATA’s motion to dismiss the case, saying it could ‘hardly be considered “burdensome” to WMATA’ to make sure Williams safely left the station. 

‘Thus, the Amended Complaint makes plausible that WMATA denied Williams basic accommodations on account of his disability,’ she wrote. 

WeAchieve did not file a motion to dismiss but has denied the allegations against them. 

The Daily Mail has reached out to the lawyers of the family, WMATA, and WeAchieve for comment. 

Authorities in Chicago are rigorously probing a funeral home situated on the South Side after more than 50 bodies were uncovered, improperly stored and in varying stages of decomposition, on Thursday.

This unsettling discovery follows months of complaints from nearby residents who reported a pervasive “stench” emanating from the funeral home.

The Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office revealed that both state and local officials had informed them about the improperly stored bodies at the South Chicago Chapel. Upon investigation, forensic pathologists and other investigators uncovered remains in different stages of decay.

“The staff is currently evaluating the conditions of the remains and is in the process of gathering documentation for the identification of the deceased, along with their death certificates,” the medical examiner’s office stated online. “This careful process could take several days to complete, ensuring the appropriate disposition.”

State officials suspended the license of one of the funeral home’s directors, alleging multiple bodies were kept in an unrefrigerated area under “deplorable conditions.”

The Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation said the conditions included rodent and maggot infestations and that the lack of refrigeration had caused bodies to decompose.

No arrests or charges have been made in connection with the discovery, but Chicago police said detectives are investigating.

State business records show funeral director Johanna Morgan incorporated South Chicago Chapel Inc. in 2022. Her funeral director’s license was temporarily suspended Wednesday.

The Department of Financial and Professional Regulation said the suspension was based on a finding that Morgan’s continued practice posed “a danger to the public safety, interest and welfare.”

The agency accused Morgan of “allowing multiple decedents to be kept in an unrefrigerated area with deplorable conditions including rodent infestation, causing decomposition and maggot infestation of the bodies.”

The funeral home is operated by a couple who previously ran a crematory that authorities said was also shut down over the mishandling of remains.

Business records identify Clark Morgan, whom state officials describe as Johanna Morgan’s husband, as president of the funeral home. His funeral director’s license was revoked in 2024 for practicing with an expired license and “unprofessional conduct.”

News Media has reached out to South Chicago Chapel for comment.

Latasha Johnson, 55, said her mother’s funeral was held at South Chicago Chapel on Thursday, shortly before authorities arrived and made the discovery.

Johnson told The Associated Press that authorities informed her that her mother’s body would need to undergo an autopsy and that she would have to identify the remains within the next several days.

“I’m discombobulated,” Johnson said. “My heart is broken.”