International
A Colombian woman researches the benefits of being bilingual
Vanessa Diaz is a Colombian woman who migrated to Miami when she was 12 years old. She is now a psychologist, with a PhD in Developmental Psychology, and who works at Virginia Tech. Vanessa studies and researches language development. And she focuses on bilingual children in the United States.
Diaz spent her childhood in Miami and was surrounded by the Latino community. So her transition was more smooth. However, she underwent a radical change when she moved to Gainesville to pursue her doctorate in child psychology and neuroscience at Virginia Tech. “This was the first time I experienced discrimination. Many people criticized my accent and thought I had not lived in the United States,” she said.
This experience prompted Vanessa to pursue a research on children and how being bilingual affects them. To her surprise, she discovered that there is actually a negative stereotype about children who speak two languages.
“Many people assume that bilingual children are speech delayed, when they really need particular support. In language development, children have limited capacity. At one and a half years of age, they can speak 50 words. If you give this child an English language test, he will only know 25 words because he knows the other 25 words in Spanish. Then, someone will immediately say that he or she has a delay. But they don’t. And that shows that there is no understanding of what bilingualism is, and it has become a pathological condition,” she said.
There are cognitive benefits to being bilingual. It makes it much easier for a person to learn other languages. And it also makes you more open-minded. “The second language is the most difficult. Then learning another one becomes quite easy,” the scientist explained.
She has also studied the concept of the mind and how bilingual children and adults develop it in a more advanced way compared to someone who speaks only one language. People who speak different languages have different cultures and depending on the culture, there is a different way of thinking. Therefore, they are more receptive to knowledge and learning.
Sources: Planet Boston Latino Daily and Connections.
International
María Corina Machado says Venezuela’s political transition “must take place”
Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado said this Thursday, during a virtual appearance at an event hosted by the Venezuelan-American Association of the U.S. (VAAUS) in New York, that Venezuela’s political transition “must take place” and that the opposition is now “more organized than ever.”
Machado, who is set to receive the Nobel Peace Prize on December 10 in Oslo, Norway — although it is not yet known whether she will attend — stressed that the opposition is currently focused on defining “what comes next” to ensure that the transition is “orderly and effective.”
“We have legitimate leadership and a clear mandate from the people,” she said, adding that the international community supports this position.
Her remarks come amid a hardening of U.S. policy toward the government of Nicolás Maduro, with new economic sanctions and what has been described as the “full closure” of airspace over and around Venezuela — a measure aimed at airlines, pilots, and alleged traffickers — increasing pressure on Caracas and further complicating both air mobility and international commercial operations.
During her speech, Machado highlighted the resilience of the Venezuelan people, who “have suffered, but refuse to surrender,” and said the opposition is facing repression with “dignity and moral strength,” including “exiles and political prisoners who have been separated from their families and have given everything for the democratic cause.”
She also thanked U.S. President Donald Trump for recognizing that Venezuela’s transition is “a priority” and for his role as a “key figure in international pressure against the Maduro regime.”
“Is change coming? Absolutely yes,” Machado said, before concluding that “Venezuela will be free.”
International
Catalonia’s president calls for greater ambition in defending democracy
The President of the Generalitat of Catalonia, Salvador Illa, on Thursday called for being “more ambitious” in defending democracy, which he warned is being threatened “from within” by inequality, extremism, and hate speech driven by what he described as a “politics of intimidation,” on the final day of his visit to Mexico.
“The greatest threat to democracies is born within themselves. It is inequality and the winds of extremism. Both need each other and feed off one another,” Illa said during a speech at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) in Mexico City.
In his address, Illa stated that in the face of extremism, society can adopt “two attitudes: hope or fear,” and warned that hate-driven rhetoric seeks to weaken citizens’ resolve. “We must be aware that hate speech, the politics of intimidation, and threats in the form of tariffs, the persecution of migrants, drones flying over Europe, or even war like the invasion of Ukraine, or walls at the border, all pursue the same goal: to make citizens give up and renounce who they want to be,” he added.
Despite these challenges, he urged people “not to lose hope,” emphasizing that there is a “better alternative,” which he summarized as “dialogue, institutional cooperation, peace, and human values.”
“I sincerely believe that we must be more ambitious in our defense of democracy, and that we must remember, demonstrate, and put into practice everything we are capable of doing. Never before has humanity accumulated so much knowledge, so much capacity, and so much power to shape the future,” Illa stressed.
For that reason, he called for a daily defense of the democratic system “at all levels and by each person according to their responsibility,” warning that democracy is currently facing an “existential threat.”
International
WMO predicts 55% chance of weakened La Niña impacting global weather this winter
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) reported on Thursday that there is a 55% chance that the La Niña phenomenon, typically associated with cooler temperatures, will affect global weather between December and February, though in a weakened form.
In its update released Thursday, the WMO clarified that while La Niña is usually linked to a temporary drop in average global temperatures, some regions could still experience warmer-than-normal conditions.
As 2026 progresses, the WMO expects the planet to shift toward neutral conditions, neither influenced by La Niña nor by its opposite, El Niño, which is associated with increased temperatures. The likelihood of neutral conditions is expected to rise to 75% between February and April, according to the agency’s regular bulletin on these phenomena.
La Niña occurs due to cooling of the central and eastern Pacific Ocean waters and is also linked to changes in tropical atmospheric circulation, including wind and rainfall patterns. The opposite phenomenon, El Niño, has not been observed by experts since 2024, which currently remains the warmest year on record.
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