Thursday, June 18, 2026

More than 19,500 Hondurans were deported home between January and May 2026, a 43% jump from the same period last year, while migration through Honduras fell 77% to fewer than 4,300 people, according to the International Organization for Migration.

Also reported by: Radio América Honduras

With backing from 93 lawmakers across four parties, Congress appointed interim leaders to the National Electoral Council and the Electoral Court to fill vacancies and cover leaves of absence, keeping electoral operations running.

A congressional committee unanimously approved a one-year amnesty letting Hondurans register unlicensed firearms without penalty, a measure officials say is meant to bring illegal weapons into the legal system.

Also reported by: Congreso Nacional

Congress approved a temporary two-month deadline extension and halted collection efforts against 2025 election candidates who failed to file required financial reports, waiving penalties for those who comply by the new deadline.

The Central Bank of Honduras auctioned $94.6 million in its June 17 foreign-exchange tender, setting the weighted average exchange rate at L26.7040 per dollar for June 18.

An ASJ report finds that nearly 800,000 Honduran households skip at least one meal because of high living costs, with 41% of the population calling food the hardest expense to cover, even as macroeconomic indicators show moderate growth.

ENEE manager Guillermo Peña Panting said a bill to overhaul Honduras's electricity system is in its final legislative stages and seeks to draw private investment into generation, transmission, and distribution to ease chronic blackouts and improve reliability.

Lawmakers approved five contracts totaling roughly 464 million lempiras (about $18.6 million) for road maintenance, slope stabilization, and drainage work in Tegucigalpa neighborhoods, aimed at easing traffic and managing stormwater runoff.

About 70% of buildings at the Cajón Dam's worker camps show significant deterioration, with 12 homes deemed uninhabitable and repairs estimated at more than 60 million lempiras (about $2.4 million), according to technical assessments.

Salomón Ordóñez, the former head of state utility ENEE, says Honduras risks losing its competitive edge in Central America unless it confronts two decades of governance failures in its electricity system, pointing to successful power-sector overhauls in Guatemala and El Salvador.

Honduras has installed a hyperbaric chamber at the Puerto Lempira hospital in Gracias a Dios to treat decompression sickness in Miskito divers, fulfilling a ruling by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and ending dangerous emergency transfers.

Honduras has recorded 14 whooping cough deaths so far in 2026, a 75% increase over the eight reported in all of 2025.

Honduras's labor ministry and national AIDS commission reminded employers that requiring HIV tests for hiring, promotion, or employment is illegal, with violators facing fines of one to five monthly minimum wages.

An Environmental Protection Battalion patrol in Las Agujas, Catacamas, Olancho stopped the illegal felling of about 98 mixed hardwood trees after a citizen report; two chainsaws were seized and the suspects fled.

André Enoc Mejía Romero, the first Honduran to attend NASA's Space Academy Camp at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, returned to San Pedro Sula and pledged to teach science and robotics to Honduran youth interested in STEM fields.

Police arrested a 46-year-old man in Juticalpa, Olancho, seizing six packets of suspected marijuana from his home during a search.

Joaquín Alvarado Bueso, 38, was extradited to the United States on charges of first-degree rape, indecent acts against minors, and child sexual abuse involving two stepchildren.

A man and his young daughter were shot dead in their home in Nueva Granada, a border community in Santa Bárbara department, and the mother was wounded and hospitalized; authorities were investigating possible personal disputes as a motive.

Also reported by: TuNota (Canal 5 / TSI), Radio HRN

Police arrested two women accused of running a smuggling scam that took $3,000 to $4,000 from Hondurans seeking illegal passage to the United States and then never delivered, leaving some victims waiting years for help that never came.

Also reported by: Radio HRN