It's official - former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has tossed her hat in the presidential ring, and she announced it Sunday with a video, "Getting Started." In an nod to the importance of the Latino vote, everyone in the video speaks English, but the only other language in her first video is - you guessed it - Spanish.

"Mi hermano y yo estamos empezando un primer negocio," ('my brother and I are starting our first business," says one man in the video. It consists of different people talking about the new things they are embarking on.

An Asian American young woman is looking for a new job after college graduation, an older woman is about to retire, an African American couple are going to have a baby and a male gay couple are going to get married, among others in the video.

"I'm getting ready to do something too - I'm running for President," says Clinton.

A video shared on Facebook shows 12-year-old Michael Merlino shining while singing “La mejor de todas” with a poise and tone well beyond his years.

The 2:30-minute video, viewed more than 14 million times, was uploaded by a family friend with the sole purpose of getting the attention of one the world’s most famous and well-regarded classical singers, Andrea Bocelli.

It was Merlino’s dream to sing with the Italian singer.

“I love his style of music and he is a person with a disability and he still transcends to people. He sings just like a normal person,” the tween told Fox News Latino during a Skype interview from his native Dominican Republic on Thursday.

Merlino has been singing classical music since he was about 4 years old. His father used to play him old records of some of the great singers and he just picked it up.

“I am drawn to this type of music,” he said. “I feel good with this type of music.”

It was during a trip to Italy many moons ago that his parents noticed their son’s gift, telling FNL that he would interpret some of the classic songs perfectly.

“He was mimicking a song called “O Sole Mio” – sometimes singing it to me perfectly and we started to notice that he had a great ear,” his mother Miguelina Escaña said. “He was really young.”

Eventually the boy started attending a music academy and a few month ago, when he found out that his idol Bocelli was performing at the Altos de Chavon Amphitheater near Santo Domingo, his family and friends started the social media campaign.

The idea came from our friend Maria Isabel who asked Michael to sing something at the beach and she taped it,” Escaña said. “In that moment Michael said his dream was to meet and sing with Andrea Bocelli and she made sure to make his dream come true.”

And it did.

On April 4, Merlino took to the stage with Bocelli to sing “Amapaola.”

“I felt good because I was received perfectly [by the audience] and when I started singing, and reaching the higher notes with him, people were clapping,” he said. “I felt a little nervous but that was not the worst part. During the rehearsal I was really nervous," the boy admitted.

His mother said she had no words to describe the evening, calling it something beyond her wildest dreams.

“It’s an indescribable emotion. It’s something that I never dreamed of,” she said. “I knew he had talent, but for him to reach this level at only 12 years old is something that I cannot express in words. It’s an unforgettable emotion.”

Handling his instant fame with grace, Merlino will continue going to school and practicing his craft because singing on a stage like that is what he wants to be doing.

“Claro que si! (Of course I do!),” he said.

Lucia I. Suarez Sang is the Entertainment Editor for Fox News Latino. She can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Bryan Llenas currently serves as a New York-based correspondent for Fox News Channel (FNC) and a reporter for Fox News Latino (FNL). Click here for more information on Bryan Llenas. Follow him on Twitter @BryanLlenas.

A man works on a scaffold preparing the venue for the seventh Summit of the Americas in Panama City, Panama. (Alejandro Bolivar)

Cuba ends more than five decades of official isolation from the institutions of the Western Hemisphere this week when President Raúl Castro attends a regional summit with up to 35 heads of state, including President Obama.

The White House said there will be “many opportunities” for conversations between the two leaders at the two-day Summit of the Americas that begins Friday in Panama, but noted that no formal bilateral meeting had yet been planned.

While administration officials said it was unlikely that the United States and Cuba would complete negotiations aimed at re-establishing diplomatic relations before the summit, there were strong indications that one of the main roadblocks in the talks was about to be removed.

The State Department is on the verge of completing a review of Cuba’s 33-year presence on the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism, ordered by Obama when he and Castro announced the Cuba-U.S. rapprochement on Dec. 17, officials said. Although three high-level negotiating sessions have been held since then, Havana has balked at moving forward on reopening embassies until it is taken off the list.

“As soon as I get a recommendation” from the State Department, “I’ll be in a position to act on it,” Obama told NPR in an interview broadcast Tuesday.

For Castro, attendance at the summit is a symbolic re-entry into the hemispheric infrastructure that avoids the question of Cuban membership in the Organization of American States, which Havana still considers an instrument of U.S. foreign policy. Although the OAS, which expelled Cuba in 1962, has invited the country to rejoin, Castro has said he would “never” do so.

Obama leaves Wednesday for a four-day trip to the region, traveling first to Jamaica to meet with a 15-nation grouping of Caribbean nations and arriving Thursday evening in Panama.

The hemispheric summit, held every three years, is the third of Obama’s presidency and the first not overshadowed by Latin American opposition to U.S. insistence that Cuba be excluded. Previous summits, held in 2009 in Trinidad and Tobago and in 2012 in Colombia, failed to issue joint declarations because of disagreements over Cuba.

“We, frankly, having gone through two previous summits, did not think it was constructive for the United States to continue to try to isolate Cuba,” said deputy national security adviser Benjamin Rhodes. “It only pointed to the failure of U.S. policy.”

Each time the U.S. took part in the Summit of the Americas, the question at issue was not about “improving democratic values,” Rhodes said, but “why Cuba wasn’t at the summit.”

Beleaguered by ongoing crises in the Middle East and Ukraine as well as polarized politics at home, the visit is likely to be a welcome respite for Obama.

This time, “there is no question that Obama goes from a position of strength, with the wind at his back,” said Mack McLarty, an architect of the summit process, which began under the Clinton administration in 1994. Resolution of the Cuba issue “takes away a very contentious, complicated issue” of previous gatherings, McLarty said.

Obama’s current popularity in much of the hemisphere is due to more than the Cuba opening, regional experts said. There is broad recognition that the administration has “gone as far as they could through executive action” in changing U.S. immigration policy, said Harold Trinkunas, Latin America director at the Brookings Institution. Even though congressional Republicans have rejected administration initiatives, “people recognize the administration’s goodwill effort,” he said.

U.S. counternarcotics policy, another long-contentious issue, has also undergone significant changes. The United States has largely dropped demands for what Latin American countries considered odious certification of their compliance with U.S. drug-enforcement policies to be eligible for certain forms of American aid.

“Obama has a strong record to bring to Panama,” said Jorge I. Dominguez, vice provost for international affairs at Harvard University and author of numerous books on hemispheric affairs. The U.S. economic recovery, he said, has also put Obama in a strong position with regard to Latin America, where a period of sustained economic boom has long since ended.

Obama’s 2016 budget request included $1 billion for Central American economic, governance and security strengthening, keyed to addressing conditions that have led to unprecedented flows of illegal immigrants from that region.

Obama also plans a visit to the Panama Canal, where an expansion due to be completed next year will double the size of tankers and other cargo vessels that can pass through the waterway, to the advantage of ports along the U.S. East Coast.

If there is a fly in the ointment for the United States and the summit planners — and it could be a big one — it is Venezuela. In the weeks since the White House placed new sanctions on seven Venezuelan officials it charged with human rights abuses, President Nicolás Maduro has spoken of almost nothing else, attempting to shift attention away from his government’s economic troubles.

In the Jamaica meeting with members of the Caribbean Community, known as Caricom, Obama will continue efforts begun early this year at an energy security summit hosted by Vice President Biden to nudge Caribbean nations away from supporting Venezuela at regional institutions such as the OAS. Venezuela provides cut-rate oil to at least a dozen Caricom members — as it does for Cuba — and the administration is trying to persuade those countries to diversify their energy sources and turn their allegiances northward.

If Maduro seizes the spotlight in Panama and twists his domestic struggles into a clash with the United States, “the summit could get hung up on the region’s dislike of sanctions which Maduro and his allies have used as proof that the United States has continued in its trajectory of paternalistic behavior” in the region, said Carl Meacham, director of the Americas Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Although they are in the minority, Maduro also retains friends, including Bolivia’s President Evo Morales and Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa. Even those with little sympathy for Maduro are uncomfortable over the sanctions. Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, a key U.S. ally, called them “counter-productive.”

But most attention will be on Cuba and the extent to which Castro feels it necessary to support Maduro. With the future of cash-strapped Venezuelan largesse increasingly in doubt, Cuba is especially keen to attract foreign capital. Castro has an unparalleled opportunity to make the case that his country is modernizing, opening to foreign investment and poised for growth.

Miroff reported from Havana.

PUERTO VALLARTA.- A young Bolivian covered in fake blood was hoisted up on a cross under the crisp Andean sun, while an inmate in Mexico City played the role of Jesus as faithful across the Americas re-enacted the final hours of Jesus' life on Good Friday.

Haitian pilgrims hiked across the mountains to visit the Stations of the Cross, some balancing stones on their heads as a form of penance.

Ecuadoreans packed the capital's downtown as men carried a statue of Jesus through the streets and women walked shrouded by dark purple lace veils.

Hooded penitents in Mexico wore heavy chains and endured prickly cacti stuck to their bodies. Others hung from trees, suspended by body harnesses, re-enacting the hanging of Judas. Nicaraguans portraying Judas wore colorful and unique costumes, including pink face masks with sunglasses.

In Puerto Rico, a woman held up a cloth showing an image of Jesus' face in red.

Peruvian musicians played trumpets, onlookers clutched Holy Week schedules and female penitents walked among heavy incense with their heads covered in white lace.

A man playing the role of Jesus in Paraguay acted out the anguish of being tortured while he carried a wooden cross and other faithful costumed as Roman soldiers lashed and kicked him.

A slum in Rio de Janeiro put on a Passion of Christ performance in which the shadow of Jesus' cross cast a sinister shadow on a nearby building.

In Guatemala, children put on purple and white costumes to play the part of penitents, and afterward stopped to eat cotton candy on the sidewalk.

PUERTO VALLARTA.- The only way to tell the three brides apart was by the color of their bouquets.

Rafaela, Rochelle and Tagiane Bini, 29-year-old triplets from the town of Passo Fundo in Southern Brazil, were married on Saturday in the same wedding ceremony with identical haridos and dresses.

The three girls have always done everything together, so it seemed natural to the girls’ parents, Pedro and Salete, that they all get married at the same time, which presented some logistical issues at Nossa Senhora Aparecida Catholic church.

The pews had to be separated more to allow the three brides to walk down the aisle side by side by side with their father, a farmer. To say nothing of the 18 bridesmaids and page boys.

He told Brazil’s Globo, "We decided that we would all walk together until half way down the aisle. From there, I would take one girl at a time."

The first bride taken to the altar was the first to be born—but the last to get engaged—Tagiane. She told the paper, "I tried to hold back my emotion, but I couldn't. To see my dad there, at that moment, was a feeling I can't explain."

The brides weren't supposed to look exactly the same.

Globo reported that they originally intended to get their hair and make-up done differently, but, as Rochelle said, "We tried a number of styles, but we all liked the same one. It's not even worth trying, it always ends up like that."

The three look so much alike, in fact, that even the grooms sometimes get confused.

Rafael—Rafaela’s new husband—told the newspaper: “One time, we were all in the kitchen making dinner. Rochelle, who is Gabriel's [wife], was doing stuff at the sink, and Rafaela was at the stove. We were chatting, and they switched places. I went behind to hug [Rafaela] and said ‘oops’ when I realized I got the wrong girl.”

But there was no such snafu on the wedding day.

Eduardo, Tagiane’s husband, told Globo, “I knew which one was mine, for sure. I knew as soon as she entered the church—she was the most beautiful.'

Since they were young, the three girls have been inseparable. Tagiane told Globo. "Once when we were kids, I cut my arm. And Rafaela felt the pain."

"I started crying too, holding the arm and saying it hurt," confirmed Rafaela.

If only I could get an Egg McMuffin at midnight in Beijing. (Tomohiro Ohsumi/Bloomberg)

Capitalism, you have served us well.

Puerto Vallarta, Jal.- The Invisible Hand of the market has finally managed the unthinkable: It has gotten McDonald’s to contemplate all-day breakfast. Slipping market share has forced it to think, er, outside the bun.

As any number of people on the Internet will tell you, breakfast at McDonald’s is one of the great boons of this life.

Part of its charm was that it was so difficult to obtain. You had to get up in time for breakfast, and — this was cruel. But it made you love it. Waking up and wrangling your way to the McDonald’s window before the signage flipped was, for those of us not naturally inclined to early rising, the equivalent of one of those fairy-tale challenges where the protagonist must shinny up the side of a glass mountain to pick up lentils while being pursued by a mortar-riding crone with iron teeth. And if the clock struck 10:30 before you could get there? You turned instantly back into a pumpkin.

But it was all worth it. Your task completed, instead of a princess whom you had seen once in a dream (who wants a princess you have seen once in a dream, anyway?), there was the Egg McMuffin. Or the Sausage Biscuit With Cheese. Or — any number of the equally wondrous boons that McDonald’s has bestowed upon us.

For so long, McDonald’s insisted that it could not alter the way it did things. The grill simply could not serve two masters. It was Breakfast or regular McDonald’s. It could not be both. And so all-day breakfast remained, elusive as the McRib or true love, always slipping from our grasp.

Someone wise once observed that when you eat at McDonald’s as a kid, it’s a triumph, and when you go there as an adult, it’s a defeat. This does not hold at breakfast. Breakfast is always a triumph.

Was this lengthened breakfast inspired by McDonald’s lagging market share in the face of the rise of the Taco Bell breakfast menu? If so, this is the greatest gift Taco Bell has ever given us.

I assumed the only thing that could give us all-day breakfast was for humanity to enter a new millennium of peace and goodwill.

But no. Even in these ill times in which we live, it is being tested in a few locations (San Diego first) for a possible nationwide roll-out. A nationwide roll-out!

Much is amiss in the world today. War, famine, poverty — well, I can’t in good conscience say that this in any way makes up for or ameliorates any of those, and I am sorry in retrospect to have brought them into this sentence. The Egg McMuffin is good, but it is not that good. But we were only talking about fast food. In the world of fast food, there are certain laws, as immutable as “You do not talk about Fight Club” and “No one goes beyond the Wall.”

And now we have broken through. We have gone beyond the 10:30 wall. Breakfast has penetrated into the wilderness beyond. Something, for once, is going right.

McDonald’s, I promise, if this goes nationwide, not to grow blase. I will not come staggering into McDonald’s at 7 at night in pajamas and hair curlers, taking the presence of a chicken biscuit for granted. The first thing, maybe. But not the second thing. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly. But this, we have waited for, all our lives. It’s time.

Alexandra Petri writes the ComPost blog, offering a lighter take on the news and opinions of the day.

 

 

Jennifer Lopez attends the Los Angeles Premiere of "Home" at the Regency Village
Theatre on Sunday, March 22, 2015, in Westwood, Calif. (Photo by Todd Williamson/Invision/AP)

PUERTO VALLARTA – Business was brisk at the weekend box-office, where the DreamWorks animated alien adventure "Home" beat out the Will Ferrell-Kevin Hart comedy "Get Hard" with a resounding debut of $54 million, according to studio estimates Sunday.

While the two films had been expected to vie for the top spot at North American theaters, "Home" came in well above expectations, handing DreamWorks Animation a much-needed hit. Though a distant second, "Get Hard" also opened strongly with an estimated $34.6 million, rewarding the Warner Bros. pairing of two of the most bankable stars in comedy.

Last week's top film at the box office, the young-adult sequel "The Divergent Series: Insurgent," slid to third with $22.1 million.

With a $100 million-plus debut expected next weekend for "Furious 7" — a franchise built on street racing adrenaline and a diverse cast — Hollywood scored with two films that sought a variety of audiences.

"Get Hard" united the fans of Hart and Ferrell, albeit while finding some criticism for its racial humor. And "Home" is the rare animated film led by an African American girl character (voiced by Rihanna). She plays a teenage girl left alone after an alien invasion of Earth. Jim Parsons, Jennifer Lopez and Steve Martin round out the cast.

"It's a diverse cast and we drew a diverse audience, which I think is really special and something you don't see in animated films," said Chris Aronson, domestic distribution head for 20th Century Fox, the film's distributor. "That just ends up broadening the appeal of the film."

More than half of the audience for "Home" was African American, Hispanic or Asian, according to Fox. The strong performance of an original release, based on a children's book by Adam Rex, provides Jeffrey Katzenberg's DreamWorks with a welcome lift. After a series of box-office disappointments, the studio cut about 500 jobs earlier this year.

Aronson called the success of "Home" ''indicative of the direction, quality-wise, that DreamWorks is going to get back to." One of the film's producers, Mireille Soria, was in January named co-president of DreamWorks Animation, along with "How to Train Your Dragon" producer Bonnie Arnold.

Despite the lure of March Madness on TV screens, "Home" (which capitalized on the relative dearth of family-friendly options) and "Get Hard" drove moviegoers to theaters. Overall, the box office was up about 8 percent from last year, according to box-office data firm Rentrak.

"Get Hard" had been dogged by controversy, as some questioned the tastefulness of humor that critics called homophobic and racist. The directorial debut of Etan Cohen, it stars Ferrell as a hedge fund manager sentenced to a maximum security prison for fraud. To prepare for life in prison, he turns to the only black person in his orbit, a family man played by Hart.

"When Will Ferrell and Kevin Hart get together, you hope to have some criticism," said Dan Fellman, head of domestic distribution for Warner Bros. He added that it's the biggest R-rated opening for both Hart and Ferrell.

The wild card of the weekend was "It Follows," a critically acclaimed indie horror film from Radius, the Weinstein Company label. After the film drew packed theaters in limited release, plans for a subsequent video-on-demand release were postponed and "It Follows" expanded to 1,218 theaters over the weekend.

"It's an interesting test case," said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for Rentrak, who applauded Radius for having the confidence in a small, very low budget movie. "It's rare for a horror film to enjoy those kind of reviews. Ordinarily, you don't see a platform building of theaters for a horror movie. Usually, you see them drop like a rock in the second week."

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Rentrak. Where available, the latest international numbers for Friday through Sunday are also included. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.

(PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY IAN WALDIE/GETTY IMAGES)

Puerto Vallarta, Jal.- A shocking report released Thursday by a federal watchdog group that has cast a glaring light on the misbehavior of U.S. federal agents in Colombia has also shed light on the pervasive culture of the sex tourism and prostitution in the South American country.

The findings of the four-year review, issued Thursday by the Department of Justice inspector general, found 26 cases involving the solicitation of prostitutes abroad – with the DEA is mentioned in 19 of them – and, while report does not identify the country where the alleged sex parties occurred, it does mention the existence of designated "tolerance zones" where prostitution is allowed and which are a fixture of several cities in Colombia.

Prostitution is legal, or at least tolerated, in many nations in Latin America, but Colombia has earned the nickname of the "Thailand of Latin America" – and become the focal point of criticism and scandal.

Colombia – along with the Dominican Republic – has become the leader in the sex tourism industry of Latin America, thanks to its lax laws toward prostitution and seemingly endless supply of young women entering the business.

"Prostitution was widespread and exacerbated by poverty and internal displacement," a 2008 State Department report noted. "Sex tourism existed to a limited extent, particularly in coastal cities such as Cartagena and Barranquilla, where marriage and dating services were often fronts for sexual tourism."

Despite efforts from both the federal and local governments in Colombia – the city of Medellín launched a campaign called "No to Sex Tourism" and the country's human rights commission issued a "sex tourism alert" because of the amount of foreigners flooding Cartagena during tourist season – the country appears to be fighting an uphill battle to shed its image as a prostitution mecca.

The Colombian NGO Pazamanos said that "sexualization of women in Colombian society has led to a lack of respect and abuse of women who are often treated as sexual objects… objectification of women is a big factor when dealing with sex tourists."

Colombia and neighboring Venezuela have the reputation of being countries with highly sexualized women – thanks in large part to the country's penchant for breast and buttocks implants, botox-inflated lips and long hair extensions.

Despite its legality in certain parts of Colombia, prostitution still remains veiled in shadows and is rife with widespread abuse and exploitation of women and girls, many of whom are underage.

"The government and city are blind to this problem, and they do nothing for prevention," Alex Cuello, a human rights lawyer for Cartagena's ombudsman's office told Vice News.

While U.S. federal agents have recently made headlines for soliciting prostitutes in Colombia – besides the recent DEA revelation, Secret Service agents in 2012 were accused of carousing with sex workers at a hotel where they were staying before President Barack Obama arrived in Cartagena – U.S. authorities have also worked closely with their Colombian counterparts to break up a number of prostitution rings in the country.

Agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement went undercover last year in Cartagena to pose as pedophile tourists and assisted Colombian authorities in breaking up a so-called "pimp ring" that lead to the arrest of five people – including 20-year-old Miss Cartagena contestant Kelly Johana Suárez – accused of selling underage girls as prostitutes.

Many observers, however, say that if Colombia wants to shed its image as a sex tourism hotspot they need to stop looking at the foreigners coming to their country and instead focus on what their own country is doing.

"One can only hope that … the campaign of groups such as Pazamanos will lead to Colombians taking a step back and thinking about the way they are viewed by foreigners and the effects of the sex trade on the country itself," Craig Corbett of Colombia Reports

Puerto Vallarta, Jal.- Is there a big, new idea about immigration? Is there a way of looking at the issues beyond polarization? Is there a way of stabilizing the lives and the living conditions for the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants who hide in the shadows of society, living in fear, and costing the United States as much as $100 billion a decade in services and lost taxation revenue?

Is there a way of making those who employ undocumented workers, or those with dubious papers, from falling into unintended criminality themselves? Is there a "third way?"

The Immigrant Tax Inquiry Group (ITIG), based in Malibu, Calif., has been pondering the implications of taxation in the immigration debate. It was formally established as a not-for-profit foundation in 2010.

ITIG's idea is big -- a new front, in effect. It brings the immigrants out of the shadows, identifies them and gives them respect, while mitigating the impact on the rest of us. It also soothes those who want nothing to do with paths to citizenship.

As I understand it, the ITIG proposal is simple: Cater to the undocumented worker by issuing a 10-year, renewable work permit and taxing the employer at five percent of the wage for employing one of these workers. This would bring the undocumented worker, and his or her family, out of the shadows, provide revenue for their cost to society, and enable them to have dignity and security without citizenship. I can attest, from my own reporting, that not every immigrant wants citizenship and a vote.

The plan has been incubating for decades among a coterie of thinkers who want a practical humane solution to the problem.

Mark Jason, executive director of ITIG, knows something about immigrants. He was educated partly in Mexico and has worked there to improve conditions so fewer people will take the long walk north.

Over the years, Jason, has discussed his ideas with people as disparate as Ronald Reagan (a family friend, when Reagan was governor of California), Cesar Chavez, the National Farm Workers Association founder and leader, and recently retired Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.).

Jason told me Reagan was interested, although this was before he became president and enacted his own immigration plan in 1986, which was straight amnesty. Chavez, he said, was more concerned with conditions in the fields than with the legal status of immigrants, partly because many farm workers come on contract. Waxman, who was a prolific legislator, liked Jason's ideas and encouraged him to "think big."

The ITIG plan is put forward in a detailed report on the Web, complete with revenue projections in graphs and charts.

Jason has worked as a tax consultant, an IRS agent and a farmer in Mexico, where he helped establish a honeydew melon farm near Puerto Vallarta. The farm has three missions: produce and export melons (350 tons in 2014), teach the local farmers better practices, and end the incentive to leave.

What frustrates Jason is the difficulty he has had in getting his ideas circulated in the immigration debate. Although the report by ITIG is detailed and clearly represents an important new dimension in the debate, it has not yet gotten traction in Congress nor, more surprisingly, among immigrant advocacy groups.

The plan, under which workers would get a 10-year work permit, get drivers licenses where states allow it, and travel freely between the United States and their country of origin. It would also convey the benefits enjoyed by American families on the immigrant family, such as education and the protections of the law.

Jason is using his own resources to push the plan. "It is not a panacea, but a practical way to get people out of the shadows and into the economy," he says.

He sees his plan as the solution not to the whole immigration dilemma but as a recognition of reality; as a way of protecting society from the cost of a shadow population. Jason believes it creates an asset where there is a liability -- but real legal status is not changed.

Jason told me his wife fell in love with him because "she said I liked to fix things."

Immigration is a big job for a handyman, but Mark Jason is at work.

Puerto Vallarta, Jal.- (National Geographic/David Yoder)Part of a buried ceremonial seat, one of many ancient artifacts discovered on-site in the Honduran jungle.In a round valley ringed by steep cliffs lies an ancient community buried beneath the rain forest.

The 1,000-year-old ruins — whose timeline coincides with a legendary "lost city" — were uncovered earlier this month.

When news outlets around the globe got ahold of the story, most portrayed it as though an ancient mystery had been solved. National Geographic ran with the headline, "Exclusive: Lost City Discovered in the Honduran Rain Forest." NPR announced, "Explorers Discover Ancient Lost City in Honduran Jungle."

There's one minor problem, though: The ruins were not the "lost city" of lore, and worse, they may never have been "lost" to begin with.

At least that's the claim of 24 researchers, archaeologists, and independent scholars who recently signed a public letter condemning the recent coverage. They take issue especially with the National Geographic story, which they say exaggerates the findings and ignores the indigenous people who still live in the region.

National Geographic has responded to the letter by linking to a statement from the research team. It says their story never claims they found the "lost city," but merely a "lost city" in the same region.

As for it being a "city," the dissenting researchers say that's up for debate, too.

The legend of the "Lost City"

Rumors about an ancient "lost city" (or "White City," as some have called it) of extreme wealth in Honduras circulated among foreigners, conquerors, and aviators in the 1900s. One outsider, a quirky young writer-turned-explorer from Massachusetts, went so far as to claim he'd found it on a trip there in 1940.

(National Geographic/David Yoder)

Unfortunately, there's scant evidence that any of these people ever consulted the indigenous people who lived in the area, instead preferring to portray it as basically barren and forgotten.

When the last person who claimed he'd found the site killed himself 14 years later (having never said where exactly it was), the rumors faded quickly.

Outsiders, it seemed, had forgotten entirely about the alleged "lost city" — until a few years ago.

What they found

In 2012, a team of American and Honduran archaeologists returned to the site on a tip from California filmmaker Steve Elkins, University of Houston engineer and one of the team members Ramesh Shrestha told Business Insider. This time, they came with hi-tech, long-distance gear that enabled them to trace a virtual image of the terrain from airplanes circling high in the air.

Gazing out of their windows, the team of engineers saw gently rolling hills and sloping mountain ridges. Eventually, they came across a basin that looked something like this:

(NCALM/University of Houston)Within hours, their gear picked up something beneath the surface that didn't look like it belonged: a sharp-edged, rectangular shape.
Here's a digital rendering of the finding, provided to Business Insider by the University of Houston:

(NCALM/University of Houston)That rectangular area could only mean one thing, the researchers thought: People. Nature provided land with curving slopes and rounded hills. Only people would have built something shaped like this.

To confirm their suspicions, they sent a team of American and Honduran archaeologists, ethnobotanists, and technicians to explore on the ground.

Sure enough, the team found evidence of the tips of more than 50 objects scattered beneath the Earth, including the tip of a carved construction stone shown here:

(NCALM/University of Houston)The researchers are keeping the site's specific location secret to protect it from looters.Upon close inspection, the archaeologists estimated the people who used these objects lived here sometime between A.D. 1000 and A.D. 1400, about the same time as residents of the famed "lost city" would have thrived.

The National Geographic story leads with this tantalizing sentence: "An expedition to Honduras has emerged from the jungle with dramatic news of the discovery of a mysterious culture's lost city, never before explored."

Problem is, that entire area is rich in ancient ruins, University of Transylvania archaeologist Chris Begley, who has 20 years' experience in the region and was one of the dissenting archaeologists leading the charge against the National Geographic story, told Business Insider.

You could point lidar technology practically anywhere in the region and find something, Begley said.

Colorado State University archaeologist Eric Fisher and the project's lead American researcher, doubts this. "There was no evidence that we could see that anyone had been there in modern times," he said. "If he's done all this research, where is it? Where are the permits?"

Begley says he and other researchers before him have been studying similar communities that thrived thousands of years ago in the region for decades. "This stuff about this being a 'big discovery' — that's just not true," he said.

Lost civilization or merely part of a larger community?

One of Begley's main issues with the National Geographic piece, he said, is that it didn't include the perspective of the indigenous people who live in the region.

Begley has worked with the Pech and the Tawahka people for decades and remains a primary contact point for other researchers and tourists. He thinks the researchers ignored their knowledge of the area and instead chose to portray it as untouched and exotic — "a sunken treasure."

"They didn't reach out to me," said Begley, "because they knew what I'd say and what I'd think about what they were doing."

According to Fisher, that's not true either. "The directors of the project have a right to choose who they work with," he said. "We had someone on our team with a decade of experience, and we had other people who reached out to local indigenous people."

The team's ethnographer, Alicia González, did meet with some members of local indigenous Miskito and Pech communities, at least in 2014 when they did their on-the-ground research. But when they first started the project in 2012, they may not have been so inclusive.

When I asked Shrestha, the engineer who took lidar images of the site in 2012, for example, about whether they'd been in touch with local indigenous people about their work, he said, "As far as I've been told there are no indigenous people there to consult."

Controversy notwithstanding, the research has certainly turned a few heads.

"This is the most positive attention the region has gotten in the last decade," said Fisher. "If people want to be critical, that's fine with me."

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PHOTO: Europa 2 now has the title of world’s top-rated cruise ship.

Puerto Vallarta.- It’s the world’s top-rated cruise ship and many of your upscale clients probably have never even heard of it. That’s the reality for Europa 2, which made its first trip stateside, to New York City, just before the New Year. Docked blocks from Times Square, the German ship showcased what $360 million can buy in a 500-guest luxury vessel.

Since the ship’s christening in May 2013, Europa 2 has been named the number-one ship in the world by the “Berlitz Guide to Cruising & Cruise Ships,” considered by many to be the Bible of cruise ship guidebooks. Europa 2 claimed the top spot by beating out Europa, its fleetmate, which had held the honor for more than a decade. Despite these accolades, both ships from Hapag-Lloyd Cruises remain largely unknown in English-speaking markets.

“The question I hear most in the U.S. is, ‘Is this the best cruise vessel in the world? I’ve never heard of it… and you are meant to be the best in the world?’ Normally you know the best in the world,” says Julian Pfitzner, Europa 2’s director of product management. “Before we simply didn’t have the product. That’s why we didn’t do any sales in the U.S. or in the U.K. Now we have the product and we’re pushing it very hard. We’re getting more and more passengers, but it takes a little while because we are a small company and the U.S. is a very big country.”

Both Hapag-Lloyd ships boast some of the highest per diems in the industry. They also feature two very different styles of cruising. Hapag-Lloyd executives like to bill Europa 2 as “21 knots and no tie,” meaning there’s no captain’s dinner or packed cruise itinerary. The ship harbors a more-relaxed atmosphere and targets couples, families and solo travelers alike. Europa 2’s fleetmate, however, is much more traditional.

“A cruise on Europa will offer you a daily schedule for 14 days until you come home,” Pfitzner says. “Those will be the best 14 days but you’ll come home and say, ‘I’m happy to be back on the sofa and relax.’ Europa 2 works the other way around. It’s 14 days off on vacation. It provides service you want when you want it. We plan everything you might like.”

Hapag-Lloyd, which also features two expedition-type vessels as part of its fleet, is now in the midst of a North American promotion as it expands its international outreach. The line is focused on attracting English-speakers and Europa 2 is the product that Hapag-Lloyd executives believe is best suited to achieve that. The goal is to have 10 to 15 percent non-German-speaking passengers on every cruise.

Apparently that objective is being met — and then some. According to recent figures, Hapag-Lloyd’s four vessels have seen a 60 percent increase in international passengers. Europa 2 alone has seen a 240 percent boost in such guests.

One concern that American guests may have about a cruise on a Hapag-Lloyd ship is language. But don’t worry: speaking German is not required to enjoy your time aboard Europa 2, which caters to guests in both English and German. There might be an occasional language barrier, with 95 percent of the staff in restaurants and bars being German, but crewmembers are required to be fluent in English. “This is an important market for us and it’s good for the atmosphere on board,” Pfitzner said.

So what else makes Europe 2 the ritziest ship in the industry? Here are five more reasons why it is the top-rated cruise ship and remains positioned to retain that title in the future:

Get more space onboard: Europa 2 is literally wasting space, something Hapag-Lloyd executives are the first to admit. You could practically fit another deck on the ship and still have the normal ceiling heights of other cruise vessels. Indeed, Europa 2 has the greatest space per passenger in the industry, besting such competitors as Silversea and Seabourn.

PHOTO: A grand suite on Europa 2 comes with over 550 square feet of living space.

There are a total of 251 suites in eight different categories. The smallest stateroom is 301 square feet, and all rooms come with their own balconies. There’s no squeezing in inner cabins. The grand ocean suite, or spa suite, is the next level up in terms of size. These cabins can’t accommodate a walk-in closet because there’s a window in the bathroom, which allows guests to look out at the sea while bathing in their whirlpool tubs.

Dine when you want, how you want: Good luck sticking with that New Year’s resolution to lose weight if you’re cruising on Europa 2. Yes, there is a world-class spa with brand-new fitness equipment, but the odds are against you. On a normal night, 120 different dishes are served à la carte in the ship’s restaurants. Fifty-six cooks serve up to 500 passengers scattered among seven different restaurants.

PHOTO: Restaurant Weltmeere, the largest restaurant on the ship, serves international cuisine.

German fare is not typically served either. There are French-, Italian-, Japanese- and Asian-themed dining venues to choose from, and guests are encouraged to move around. Food is included in the fare, but guests do have to pay for drinks. This might seem bizarre to many luxury travelers, who are accustomed to all-inclusive packages on a cruise.

“All inclusive to me as the businessman means I need to calculate an average everybody is consuming, and then I’m buying spirits, fine wines and alcohols which are meeting this average,” Pfitzner says. “And average is a word which to me doesn’t fit together in a sentence with Europa 2 because nothing about this vessel is average. Of course we understand that in the U.S. and U.K. markets, all-inclusive is a big thing.” To compensate international passengers, however, Hapag-Lloyd is now offering an onboard beverage credit of up to 200 euros per person on Europa 2.

Enjoy one of the largest art collections at sea: The most expensive piece of art on board hangs in the middle of a hallway nestled by an exit placard. There’s no sign or label acknowledging that this is the work of Gerhard Richter, who recently held the title of most expensive living artist at auction. The piece is one of 890 originals exclusively commissioned for the ship.

“You will never ever find out this is an expensive picture, but it simply hangs here and that is luxury for us,” Pfitzner says. “We don’t make a big sign and say ‘this is very expensive look here.’ We don’t make a fuss about it. We simply have it offered. That’s luxury.”

The art on board focuses on contemporary pieces, including creations from young European artists. The portfolio includes works from Ólafur Elíasson, David Hockney, Damien Hirst, Adam Fuss and Hans Hartung.

Special attention also is paid to the art selection in suites. For example, in the two Grand Penthouse Suites and the two Owner Suites, guests enjoy works from British pop-art artist Hirst. They’re part of his portfolio The Souls I, II, III, IV, which consists of four different series of butterfly images in 80 different colors. If those are not in your cabin, Europa 2 can arrange a guided tour to see the other works on board.

Enjoy the detail in the little things: Fresh flowers give your nose a break from the salt air. A professional golfer with experience on the European tour walks a world-class course with you, fine-tuning that erratic putter. Expensive and decorative Chinese porcelain features tributes to Bugs Bunny.

These are some of the little things that make Europa 2 so luxurious and unique. The list goes on and on. In the spa, there’s a private deck where guests can relax after their treatments. Guests also get instruction in how to cook from a top-notch culinary school.

Get a wide selection of gins: It might seem to be an odd choice, especially for a German-owned ship, but there are more than 200 different gins available on Europa 2. In fact, Hapag-Lloyd boasts that this is the largest gin collection in the industry —a nd it’s also constantly evolving. The crew frequently picks up local bottles in ports across the world so guests can taste how other cultures embrace the power of the juniper berry.

When it comes to picking a favorite, Monkey 47, which hails from Germany’s Black Forest and is named in part for the number of botanicals required to make it, is quite popular onboard. While sailing in France, however, guests might opt for a French export made of grapes.

For more information on Europa 2 and Hapag-Lloyd Cruises, call 011-49-40-3070-3050, email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or visit www.hl-cruises.com.

© Jean-Paul Pelissier/Reuters French firefighters prepare to take-off in Digne-les-Bains for the crash site of an Airbus A320,
in the French Alps, March 24, 2015. An Airbus plane operated by Lufthansa's Germanwings budget airline crashed in southern…

Puerto Vallarta,- The crew of the Germanwings flight that crashed in the French Alps on Tuesday did not send a distress signal, civil aviation authorities told AFP.

"The crew did not send a Mayday. It was air traffic control that decided to declare the plane was in distress because there was no contact with the crew of the plane," the source said.

This is a breaking news alert. Please check back for details. AFP's previous story is below.

A German airliner crashed near a ski resort in the French Alps on Tuesday, killing all 150 people on board, in the worst plane disaster in mainland France in four decades.

France's junior transport minister said there were "no survivors" from the crash of the Germanwings Airbus A320, a low-cost subsidiary of Lufthansa, in a remote part of the Alps that is extremely difficult to access.

Civil aviation authorities said they lost contact with the plane, which was carrying 144 passengers and six crew, and declared it was in distress at 10:30 am (0930 GMT).

"The distress signal showed the plane was at 5,000 feet in an abnormal situation," said Alain Vidalies, minister of state for transport.

Spanish King Felipe VI cut short his state visit to France on news of the tragedy, with a number of Spanish nationals believed to be among the dead along with Germans and possibly Turks.

French President Francois Hollande said the plane crashed in an area very difficult to access and rescuers would not be able to reach the site for several hours.

"I want to express all our solidarity to the families affected by this tragedy," Hollande told reporters.

The plane was travelling from the Spanish coastal city of Barcelona to the German city of Duesseldorf when it went down in the ski resort area of Barcelonnette.

A witness who was skiing near the crash site told a French television channel he "heard an enormous noise" around the time of the disaster.

A French police helicopter dispatched to the site of the crash reported spotting debris in a mountain range known as "Les Trois Eveches," which reaches 1,400 metres in altitude.

The government said "major rescue efforts" had been mobilised, but accessing the remote region would present severe challenges.

"The zone is snow-bound and inaccessible to vehicles, but could be overflown by helicopters," said Vidalies.

The plane belonged to Germanwings, a low-cost affiliate of German airline Lufthansa based in Cologne which until now had no record of fatal accidents.

France's leading air traffic controller union SNCTA has called off a strike planned from Wednesday to Friday.

"We are suspending our planned strike as a result of the emotions created in the control rooms by the crash, particularly in Aix-en-Provence," the union's spokesman Roger Rousseau told AFP.

Lufthansa chief executive Carsten Spohr said on twitter the airline had no immediate details on the crash, describing it as a "dark day."

"My deepest sympathy goes to the families and friends of our passengers and crew on 4U 9525. If our fears are confirmed, this is a dark day for Lufthansa. We hope to find survivors."

Hollande spoke briefly by phone with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and expressed solidarity with Germany.

Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve immediately headed to the scene while Prime Minister Manuel Valls said he had called an inter-ministerial crisis cell.

"We don't know the reasons for the crash, we clearly fear that the 150 passengers and personnel have been killed considering the circumstances of the crash," said Valls.

"All is being done to understand what happened and to help the families of the victims," he said.