She started sniffing glue at age six to ease the hunger of life in a Brazilian slum. She got her first revolver when she was 11. Now 54, Raquel de Oliveira, once the first lady of the drug trade in ...

In Brazil, 12 million families -- up to 60 million people -- live in slums, known as "favelas" in Portuguese, and 55 million people do not have access to a sewage system. Until now, the Catholic ...

RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - Like his house, Jose Santos de Oliveira is an island of resistance. The middle-aged gardener and his home stand amid the sea of rubble that remains of the slum community of ...

Thousands of soldiers in armored vehicles, trucks and on foot entered one of Rio de Janeiro’s most notorious slums Saturday to provide security less than three months before the World Cup. The move is ...

Brazilian security forces have occupied a Rio de Janeiro favela in a bid to remove drug gangs from the city ahead of the World Cup this summer. In a dawn raid on Sunday, police swarmed the Mare slum, ...

A resident is framed by laundry hanging out to dry in the Paraisopolis favela, in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Thursday, Sept. 16, 2021. (Credit: Andre Penner/AP.) Listen SÃO PAULO – After years of economic ...

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RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) – A police officer was slain while on foot patrol in Brazil’s largest slum, military police said Friday. Diego Bruno Barbosa Henriques was shot and killed overnight Thursday as he ...

Brazil is a flourishing democracy and regional superpower, with a robust annual growth rate and the world’s eighth-largest economy. Yet its favelas have remained stark symbols of lawlessness, gross ...

Police officers belonging to the BOPE (Special Police Operations Battalion) ask a girl about her parents at the Rocinha slum in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Wednesday, April 4, 2012. Hundreds of police ...