Daily Headlines: August 11, 2014

* Cuba: A letter from 300 U.S. rabbis sent to President Barack Obama last week urged the White House to push more strongly for the “immediate release” of U.S. government subcontractor Alan Gross from a Cuban prison.

* Argentina: Judge Thomas Griesa, the U.S. magistrate overseeing the legal tug-of-war between the Argentine government and holdout creditors, threatened the South American country’s representatives with contempt of court.
 
* Brazil: A poll conducted roughly ten weeks before Brazil’s presidential election found that incumbent Dilma Rousseff’s strong lead over her rivals remains unchanged and she would win a possible run-off over her closest opponents.

* Bolivia: Researchers concluded that a recently discovered yellow bat in Bolivia is its own species and will receive the scientific name of Myotis midastactus.

Video Source – CCTV America via YouTube (“Former U.S. Agency for International Development subcontractor Alan Gross has said goodbye to his family after being held in Cuban prison for the past five years.”)

Online Sources – ABC News; Bloomberg; CNN; National Geographic; The Latin Americanist