Thursday, September 3, 2026

The Labor Committee opened hearings on a proposal to extend the workplace lactation benefit by 42 days beyond the current six months and to begin counting it only after postnatal leave ends, with unions already consulted and private-sector feedback still pending.

Honduras's Medical College (CMH) has given the government three days to pay more than two months of back wages owed to public-sector doctors and to reinstate dismissed physicians, threatening to step up labor action if its demands go unmet.

A judge formally charged former military chief Roosevelt Hernández after the Journalists' Association complained about a social-media post in which he called several reporters "hired killers" (sicarios), a charge Hernández says amounts to censorship.

Former president Manuel Zelaya attacked Congress's approval of an energy-reform law as a handover of state control to private corporations, arguing it shows how elites and outside political pressure erode Honduran democracy.

Thomas R. Hardy, operations director of the U.S. Trade and Development Agency, said energy-sector reform and infrastructure links between Honduras's Atlantic and Pacific coasts are essential to attracting American investment and strengthening the economy.

Honduras endures more than 165 hours of blackouts a year—compared with fewer than 9 in El Salvador—costing businesses over $100 million annually, and analysts warn that the new Energy Justice Law's impact will hinge on the institutional capacity to enforce it.

The electricity regulator warns that Honduras could face power rationing next year unless it quickly adds generation capacity through competitive bidding, which it says—not tax breaks—will bring energy costs down.

An undercover investigation by La Prensa found that Medisan, a clinic operating without a valid health license in a San Pedro Sula shopping center, uses fraudulent quantum-resonance devices to diagnose fictitious illnesses and sell fake natural remedies, preying on vulnerable customers with credit cards.

Also reported by: El Heraldo

A woman received an alarming 128-page diagnosis of multiple organ problems from a quantum-resonance machine at the Nueva Med clinic in Tegucigalpa, but routine blood and urine tests at an independent laboratory contradicted the severity of those findings, raising doubts about the device's reliability.

Also reported by: La Prensa

Twenty-eight public-health doctors in Gracias a Dios department, some in remote communities, have gone unpaid for up to eight months in 2026, and at least ten are weighing resignation even as they keep staffing the Puerto Lempira Hospital and outlying clinics.

A motorcyclist died in a violent collision with a truck on National Road 23 near Punta Ocote in Yoro municipality, where firefighters found him without vital signs.

Roatán's municipality is launching a structured training and certification program called Anfitriones del Destino (Destination Hosts) for tourism workers, including beach massage providers, to raise service standards and professionalize the sector.

Tegucigalpa's 15 school districts have mapped out parade routes across the capital for Independence Day: preschool on September 6 and primary school on September 13, covering both urban and rural areas.

Police arrested two young men, including 23-year-old Omar Alejandro Luna Díaz, in a raid in Choloma and seized cocaine and crack allegedly packaged for street sales.

A Honduran court has ordered that the trial of four men accused in the disappearance of American tourist Angie Peña, missing from Roatán since January 2022, be held in closed session, barring the press and public; prosecutors argue the secrecy protects the investigation and, if she is alive, potentially Peña's safety.

The director of the National Anticorruption Council said the Public Ministry failed to prove its case against former president Juan Orlando Hernández, pointing to the absence of a key witness and arguing that Honduras's justice system has lost the public's trust.

Also reported by: La Prensa

Honduras has enacted a four-month amnesty, running through December 14, that lets individuals, businesses, and public agencies clear civil-liability debts owed to the Superior Court of Audits by paying only the principal, with all interest, fines, and surcharges waived.

Honduras's farm sector is reporting heavy losses from bad weather, with corn production down about 30% across the plots surveyed and livestock output falling 10–40%; the Agriculture Ministry is distributing 20 million lempiras (about $800,000) in feed aid and crop incentives to affected farmers and ranchers.

The electricity regulator, CREE, is expected to approve a 17% rate increase on September 30, but a six-month rate freeze and state subsidies enacted by Congress will keep the increase from reaching residential and vulnerable consumers.

The head of Honduras's small-business chamber, Victorino Carranza, urged that Congress's recent electricity-sector reforms cut operating costs for micro and small enterprises, saying companies should pay only for the energy they use and that unpredictable rates now make financial planning impossible.

The Infrastructure Ministry announced four simultaneous road projects—three bridge widenings and an overpass near Loarque—costing about L250 million (roughly $10 million) to clear bottlenecks on Tegucigalpa's southern ring road, with completion expected by December 2027.

ENEE has scheduled power cuts on September 3 in Santa Bárbara, Cortés, and Ocotepeque departments, running from early morning through mid-afternoon for maintenance, equipment removal, and contractor work.

Honduras's Public Ministry has opened investigations into Medisan in San Pedro Sula and Nueva Med in Tegucigalpa, both accused of issuing false diagnoses to push patients into buying costly treatments, following a La Prensa investigation that documented the clinics' practices.

Also reported by: El Heraldo

Hurricanes Karina and Lowell both reached Category 4 strength with 145 mph winds on September 2, while Tropical Storm Marie strengthened nearby and forecasters watched a fourth system for possible development.

Instituto José Trinidad Reyes will celebrate its 100th anniversary on September 13 with the Copa Centenario, a band competition featuring about 40 Honduran ensembles and 3 international ones from Colombia and Guatemala.

Eighty-one students from Instituto Yave Nissi in Tegucigalpa are rehearsing dance routines and musical numbers for Honduras's September 15 Independence Day celebrations, with flag bearers, a marching band, and a pom squad practicing five to six hours a day after classes.

Dismissals of technical staff and partisan hiring at Honduras's cultural ministry and national library are jeopardizing the preservation of the country's historical archives, and one historian was removed after her internal-party voting record was made public.

"Los Piratas," the departmental band from Islas de la Bahía, took first place in the Froylán Turcios banda de guerra (marching band) competition in Tocoa, Colón, and also won top honors in several instrument categories and for best artistic director.

Port Vale manager Jon Brady voiced confidence in Honduran striker Keyrol Figueroa, on loan to the English fourth-division club from Liverpool, praising his speed, directness, and unpredictability in attack.

Juan Carlos Arvizú Hernández, a Honduran trafficker known as 'Lanchita' who was convicted of moving more than 5,000 kg of cocaine through Central America to the United States, lost his appeal to cut his 30-year sentence, which he argued violated Honduras's extradition treaty.

A 44-year-old woman was arrested after guards at the National Penitentiary of Támara found marijuana hidden in her shoes during a routine search at the prison entrance.

Also reported by: TuNota (Canal 5 / TSI)

Former congressman Fredy Nájera sought to withdraw his 2018 guilty plea in a New York federal drug-trafficking case, arguing that his lawyer, Manuel Rocha, had a conflict of interest because Rocha also represented Honduran trafficker Wilter Blanco—the man Nájera's defense wanted to implicate in the 2009 killing of General Julián Arístides González.