Stories we're reading

1. Honduras is reeling from two political scandals, including President Xiomara Castro's announcement last week that she was ending the country's century-old criminal extradition agreement with the United States.

• The announcement came after the U.S. ambassador to Honduras, Laura Dogu, criticized a meeting of José Manuel Zelaya, who was then the Honduran minister of defense, with Venezuelan defense officials.
• A few days after the announcement, Zelaya's father, Carlos, (who is Castro's brother-in-law) resigned from his post in Congress after admitting to having unwittingly met with drug traffickers in 2013.
• José Manuel Zelaya then resigned as defense minister and was replaced by Rixi Moncada Godoy, a former finance minister under the presidency of Castro's husband, Manuel Zelaya.

2. The Venezuelan regime yesterday put out an arrest warrant for opposition leader Edmundo González on the grounds of falsifying information and conspiracy.

• The warrant comes after the opposition published vote tallies showing González won the July 28 election, while the regime of President Nicolás Maduro claims he won a third term but has shown no proof.
• Yesterday the U.S. Department of Justice announced that, in an operation in the Dominican Republic, it seized a plane used by Maduro, saying he'd acquired it by having it "smuggled out" "of the U.S.

3. Mexico's lower house is scheduled to vote later today on a judicial reform package that has provoked mass protests and raised concerns that the country is straying from democratic norms.

• Passage is practically assured, as the ruling party Morena has a supermajority and the reform was proposed by the party's founder, popular outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
• The bill will then go to the Senate, where Morena also has a majority.